Pakistan’s film industry has seen a rebirth of sorts during the last few years. However, despite visible progress, film makers in the country have ended up producing stuff that more often than not is well short of what the audience expects.
Cinematography without a shadow of doubt has improved significantly however, there are other departments where the industry needs to evolve. Here is a look at top 3 areas where our film makers need to get things right so that the current momentum can be sustained.
3. Doing Away with the Influence of Bollywood
The influence of Bollywood (particularly, with regard to music and choreography) on the developing local industry is understandable however, with the exception of Nabeel Qureshi (the director of Na Maloom Afraad) and may be, a couple others nobody has really been able to pull-off dance numbers in a manner that is both graceful and entertaining.
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With limited main stream artists and untutored extra actors perhaps, the time is right for our directors to create a genre of their own by doing away with the Bollywood influence (which by the way has had its roots from the word go). There is a need to opt for situations that do not leave our lead actors cutting a sorry figure while they have to lip sync and dance around. Instead building montages as per the requirement of the story should be a source of equal entertainment for the masses as long as the music is sweet to the ears and the lyrics make sense.
2. Acting and Dialogue Delivery
Since most actors come from a drama background their acting and dialogue delivery leaves the audience wondering if they had purchased their tickets to watch an art film. On the other hand the ones from stage background have this tendency of making everything a little too dramatic for one to be able to comprehend.
This is where the directors need to step in and prepare their actors to portray the characters in a manner that is larger than life and yet easy for the masses to relate with.
1. The Ability to Narrate a Story
Narrating a story remains to be the weakest link. A handful of script writers and editors seems to be the obvious reason why most of our films end up with a story that develops either at a snail’s pace or in a manner that can be described as erratic at best.
Hence, it makes sense for our producers to invest in the script and the editing. For now atleast, there seems to be a need to hire foreigners whom our local writers and editors assist and learn from.
Without paying attention to the aforesaid areas there is little hope that Lollywood would be able to survive in the Pakistani market let alone anywhere else in the world.