"Day in the Life of " Movies 

Last few weeks have seen onslaught of movies exploring similar concepts ending up with cold reception at the box office. Is the democratization of film-making spawning a bunch of movie makers with no experience in screen writing? Are a number of budding film-makers pre-maturely enter film-making without preparing themselves fully for the real world?

Life in a Coffee Shop - Maalai Pozhudhin Mayakathile

Maalai Pozhudhin Mayakathile was released last week. For a movie of such low budget, the movie had pretty good hype due to hit songs and catchy visuals shown in the teaser. As a result, the movie had good coverage among critics and people. The movie was about a day in a coffee shop exploring the emotions of various characters and the stories in their lives. But, the critic and audience reviews have unanimously thrashed the movie claiming that it was too boring, aimless due to poor direction, weak script and amateur acting.

Life in a TASMAC Bar - Madhubaana Kadai

This week another small movie, Madhubaana Kadai,  which showed signs of good potential released. The movie again focused on a day in TASMAC and the lives of people from various backgrounds. Yet another movie with similar concept facing the same fate at the box office. Reviewers panned the movie saying the scenes were getting too repetitive, boring and pointless. 

Technology lowers barrier for entry 

All these have helped movies made within budget of 10 Lakhs to 50 Lakhs take a shot at competing against multi-crore medium budget to big budget movies. Shows of Billa 2 were dropped to accommodate the above two movies with the hope that they will be able to bring in more money than the ones already screened.

Canon 5D(21MP) and Canon 7D(18MP) with video recording options sell only for Rs 1.4 Lakhs and Rs. 80,000. For example, Balaji Shakthivel used Canon 5D in Vazhakku Enn 18/9. The video output of these digital cameras are becoming comparable to movies made with conventional cameras. Additional advantage is that there are no expenses for physical film rolls and they perform well in natural lighting conditions. The editing software are also very cheap these days. With the help of some aspiring singers and music arrangers, trendy sounding songs are being composed and released by big companies like Sony Music. In addition to all these, many small movie makers are familiar with how to market their movies in social media and take it directly to target audience.

Back to Basics - Focus on SCRIPT

No matter how much the technology advances, the recent new movies still lack the fundamental aspects of movie making - SCRIPT. One commonality among these recent movies is that they all suffer from poor writing hinging heavily on weak plot and cliched story lines. As a result, many of these movies are sinking without a trace a day or two after release. There is also a sense of disillusionment among fans after watching these movies in theatres. Before fans completely lose faith in small budget digital movies, hope "Attakathi" and "Naduvule Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom.." revive and restore some faith in this genre of movies.