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Tuesday, 4 February 2020
Sunday, 26 January 2020
Window Seat 26.1.20
Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee | 26.1.20
Of Cartoons and Cartoonists
I have been in
love with cartoons and caricatures since my childhood. Handa Bhoda and Bantul,
the Great were my favourite characters. All these characters were created and
regularly drawn by Narayan Debnath in a Bengali Children’s magazine
Suktara. I was hero-worshiping the
strong muscular Bantul- the boy in a white banyan, who always help the needy
and punishes the wicked. He wears an aura of invincibility but he is not
arrogant. In fact he has a childlike simplicity. Handa Bhoda- the two kids- one
thin and smart and the other fat and stupid were fun.
As I grew up- I
was introduced to newspapers. At home we had many avid newspaper readers. They
would spend hours reading and rereading newspapers and discussing about the
news covered or otherwise. I grew up with the cartoons of Amal Deb, Chandi
Lahiri and Kutty in Bengali newspapers and R K Laxman, Sudhir Dar, Abu Abraham
in English newspapers. Kutty also drew in English newspapers like Hindustan
Standard. But we never subscribed to that.
Initially I
could not understand the hidden meaning of the cartoons- the nuances. I was
happy reading Sudhir Dar’s cartoons on every day happenings. As I grew old- I
could understand the nuances- and I fell in love with the cartoonists all
over again. This time it became a
lifelong love affair. However, when I married my wife said: “He loves cartoons
probably because he looks like one.”
When I joined
IIMC and began teaching- I decided to write a book on History of Journalism in
Odisha. One of the chapters of the book was devoted to Cartoonists. I read
about the cartoonists, learnt the history of cartooning in India and Odisha. It
was fascinating and I decided to write more about them.
So I started
writing bio-profiles of the famous cartoonists of India across languages and
regions. It was regularly published in Raipur based monthly magazine:
Cartoonwatch. This series was translated into Odia and was published in
Samadrusti. It was published in Hindi and was published in Daily Deshbandhu.
I am still
writing profile of the cartoonists. My plan is to put them togather in book
form. I have thought of the title of the book: 50 Great Indian Cartoonists.
Among my future
plans are: I’ll do more research and write a fat book on Cartooning in India
from the Raj period to say Modi period. I plan to publish the book by 2022.
I also want to
write about the Memes. This I guess is providing technology in the hands of the
common men to make fun of the high and mighty.
Collecting
information about cartoonists has always been a pain in the neck- except for
some very well-known and researched cartoonist like R K Laxman and Shankar. I
have to go to the archives, ruminate though wades of papers. Internet has been
a great help. So were friends, who helped me whole heartedly.
Not many people
have done or are doing research on cartoonists. There are not many
organisations like Indian Institute of Cartoonists, which is doing a yeoman
service in documenting cartoons and cartoonists. Kerala Cartoon Academy is
another such organization. Besides these two there are hardly any organization
where one can get credible information about the cartoonists. This is ironic.
Most of the readers do like to see and read cartoons, enjoy them. Many of them
get amused, moved, agitated by the cartoons. But there have been very less
serious research on cartoons and cartoonists.
Rural India is changing
The other day I
saw an out-door advertisement- a printed flex of a local Dance Group Dhenkanal,
a small sleepy town in Central Odisha. It read the group can provide dancers
for and performers Stage programme, cheer leading and dancing 'for any
occasion'. I had never thought that dancing and cheer leading could be a career
option or even a means to earn in a small conservative town like Dhenkanal. It
could be possible in big cities. But in small towns?
Things indeed
are changing in small towns and rural India. Two factors are driving the
change. One is smart phone- which is bringing the world to your palm.
Geographical distance is not an issue anymore- when it comes to access to
information. The second is rising aspiration, a spin-off of the now faded and
jaded globalization.
Delay in Court Cases
Delay in court cases and its impact on poor people’s lives have been the subject of many stories and
award winning feature films. It has a serious financial and sociological implication. As cases linger and people do
not get justice- their faith on the system wanes. They want to get justice or
what they think as justice- in any which way. This is dangerous for any society
more so a plural and unequal society like our’s.
The government need to take steps to reduce the number of cases
pending at different courts and new cases being filed.
Interestingly, government - both Centre and states - is the
largest litigant involved in at least 46% of the cases with courts. This
includes cases involving two government wings or PSUs. Since government in India
furnctions in various shapes and forms, it’s imperative to have a high degree
of coordination to lessen intra-governmental issues landing in court. But the
least that should be done to unclog the system is not make policies that are
sure to end in copious litigation.
Another step that needs to be taken is to increase the working
days of the court. Courts have more holidays than any other government offices.
That could be reduced.
Fixing a time frame for finalization of a case could be another way.
Very often cases either linger or made to linger by vested interest. Fixing a
strict time frame will take care of this problem.
Tailpiece: Difference
Difference
between talent and God’s gift:
A
teacher can deliver lecture for 2 hours on any subject. This is talent.
A
wife can deliver lecture for 2 hours
without any subject. This is God’s gift.
And….
If your wife is a teacher, then it is a deadly combination.
***
The
author, a journalist turned media academician lives in Central Odisha town of
Dhenkanal.
An
anthology of his weekly column Window
Seat, published in 2019 has been published as a book. Should you want a free
e-copy, write to him at: mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com
Friday, 24 January 2020
Wednesday, 22 January 2020
COLUMN | Window Seat 19.1.20
Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee | 19.1.20
Cinema in the age of OTT
Recently a seminar has been organized
at Indian Institute of Mass Communication’s Eastern Regional Campus on ‘Cinema
in the age of OTT’ in which I participated. Here is my two bits on this
subject:
OTT stands for
“over-the-top” and refers to the productized practice of streaming content to
customers directly over the web. This precisely means, OTT services circumvent
traditional media distribution channels such as telecommunications networks or
cable television providers. This is what is being called ‘chord cutting’. As long as you have access to an internet
connection — either locally or through a mobile network — you can access the
complete service at your leisure.
Some media-pundits
believe that It represents the future of entertainment — one that is already
unfolding. However, OTT is not limited to entertainment alone. The
term is commonly applied to video-on-demand platforms, but also refers to audio
streaming, messaging services, or internet-based voice calling solutions. So
Spotify, Apple or Amazon Music, even certain content in social media platforms
like Facebook, Instagram also come into this arena along with familiar OTT
video streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Zee5, Hotstar, Alt
Balaji.
I look at OTT in today’s
seminar’s context at three levels: Creative aspects of production, distribution
and the business model.
There is a perception
that OTT platforms are democratizing the creative space. They are, in a sense,
providing a level playing field for the independent creators and producers and
the industry cannot be a monopoly or oligopoly. We have seen production start
ups like TVF play, their sister organisations Dice Media, Timeliners are coming
up with interesting content meant for the young urban population.
When it is true that
these young creators without a strong Bollywood background are coming up and
reaching out to their audiences through OTT platforms, it is also true that big
names in Bollywood are also tapping this opportunity to collaborate with the
OTT platforms. Directors ranging from Anurag Kashyap to Karan Johar, Zoya
Akhtar are producing so called ‘web series’ for these platforms. The latest is
Ghost Story.
OTT is definitely
changing the way the stories are told. The traditional cinema and the OTT
platform’s original content are quite distinct. They are more like real life
stories rather than the ‘rom-com’ of the silver screens.
Now, coming to the
distribution model, we can see two-fold development. One is the mainstream film
producers are streaming their content which was meant for the big screen. They
are releasing it on the big screen first and then instead of premiering in the
traditional TV, they are streaming it through OTT platforms. I have doubt if this
distribution model would be beneficial for the producers and the distributors.
In the West, the same
distribution model was adapted and it failed. The producers need to create
distinct content for different medium. And trust me, the big screen is not yet
dead. People love to watch movie on the big screen as much as they enjoy
watching OTT content at their own private space and time.
Indian film industry’s
biggest challenge has been the dichotomy of under penetration of screens and
low occupancy rate. With 8 screens per million population, India is by far one
of the most under screened nations in the world so there is still room to grow.
India has 30-35 million frequent moviegoers and another 70-75 million who watch
movies occasionally.
So, both the creators
need to think about producing and distributing unique content for different
platforms to tap the millennial audience.
Here, comes the question
of the business model. The recent KPMG study shows the Digital entertainment
busines has grown at 43.4 per cent in 2019 compared to 2018. Whereas, the TV
business has grown at 9.5 per cent. The revenue from advertising has grown at
37.6 per cent compared to TV’s 12.1 per cent.
Along with advertising,
OTT services are typically monetized via paid subscriptions, but there are
exceptions. For example, some OTT platforms might offer in-app purchases or
advertising. There is a popular perception that people love to consume whatever
they get free of cost. This is universally true, but as far as OTT content is concerned, this generation with disposable income is
ready to pay for good content. India's video-on-demand market will touch $5 billion by 2023
from $500 million last year.
There are certain areas which need to be looked
into is these OTT platforms need to spread out in more regional languages.
Tail piece 1: Zoo Story
This guy needs a job and decides to apply at the zoo. As it
happened, their star attraction, a gorilla, had passed away the night before
and they had carefully preserved his hide. They tell this guy that they’ll pay
him well if he would dress up in the gorillas skin and pretend to be the
gorilla so people will keep coming to the zoo. Well, the guy has his doubts,
but Hey! He needs the money, so he puts on the skin and goes out into the cage.
The people all cheer to see him. He plays up to the audience and they just eat
it up. This isn’t so bad, he thinks, and he starts really putting on a show,
jumping around, beating his chest and roaring, swinging around. During one
acrobatic attempt, though, he loses his balance and crashes through some safety
netting, landing square in the mid dle of the lion cage! As he lies there
stunned, the lion roars. He’s terrified and starts screaming, “Help, Help,
Help!” The lion races over to him, places his paws on his chest and hisses,
“Shut up or we’ll BOTH lose our jobs!”
Tail piece 2: Happy Home
It takes thousands of workers to build a castle. Million soldiers
to protect a country. But just one woman to make a Happy Home.
Let’s thank…..
Kaamwali Bai
(Courtesy: Social Media)
***
The
author, a journalist turned media academician lives in Central Odisha town of
Dhenkanal.
An
anthology of his weekly column Window
Seat, published in 2019 is being published as a book. Should you want a
copy with introductory discounted price, write to him at: mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com
Saturday, 18 January 2020
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