‘Filmmaking to become expensive post lockdown’: Writer-director Rahul Dholakia

Dholakia also stressed that people in the industry would have to chalk out a detailed plan before starting any work.
Rahul Dholakia
Rahul Dholakia

Asserting that filmmaking would become expensive once the lockdown is lifted, writer-director Rahul Dholakia suggests filmmakers and producers re-evaluate the functioning of a film set and enhance their focus on sanitisation as well as safety of the people involved. 

“Filmmaking will be different. It will be expensive because of the rules and guidelines. Every day will start and end with sanitising and checking the temperature of everyone present on the sets. Sanitising not just people but even the smallest of things, like the props on the sets, will have to happen regularly and all this will lead to more expenses. All this will lead to extra shifts, extra crew members and extra equipment. I think there will be an increase in the budget by approximately 30 to 40 per cent,” the Raees director told PTI in an interview.

Dholakia also stressed that people in the industry would have to chalk out a detailed plan before starting any work. “An actor comes with their staff and that will be cut down. I am not sure if we can reduce the crew members, like we have lighting crew, setting crew, rehearsal team and other teams doing different jobs simultaneously, but now it seems everyone will come one by one to do their job. Everything will be compartmentalised,” added the National Film Award-winning director.

Further adding that it will be a challenge to bring the audiences back to cinema halls, Dholakia said that people would prefer to consume content on an OTT platform, in the safe environment of their home, and also put forth the idea of not having an intermission. 

“Theatre owners might decide to not have an intermission period and that will be a great thing for cinema. The narrative will be crisper. Storytelling and screenplay writing will be sharp as the interval point will go away. It will be in a proper structure as that is what one is seeing on OTT and TV currently. Eventually, films will be shorter in length, like one-and-half-hour. We hope there will be no interval as that is also good for the safety of people and better for filmmaking as well,” he concluded. 

Related Stories

No stories found.
Indulgexpress
www.indulgexpress.com