I have a confession to make. Hollywood has always fascinated me. Not because of the larger-than-life stories they come up with. But because of the enormous machinery that churns out a movie. To the utter frustration of my family, I always stay back at the end of a movie, looking at all the credits which flash by - to see the rest of the iceberg under the tip. The thousands of people who made this movie happen, out of which only a fraction gets the world wide adulation, but all of them were needed to make it happen.
The actors are important, yes, but I am generally more impressed with the production values of a movie. My handful of attempts to even cut a 2 minute home video, made me aware of how difficult editing really is. And how editing, just one of the functions in making a movie, can make or break a movie - make a difference about whether it kept you glued to the story, or made your attention waver. And every body knows about sound effects - how the closer the sound effects are to your assumption of reality, the more seriously you take the movie. Seriously, I lose interest in a movie as soon as I hear a single “dhishum” - too many years of crappily produced Indian movies will do that to you.
But nothing is more important to the movie that the story. I am a bit aware of the role of the screenplay. I can sort of imagine the effort it takes to translate even a well written book to a detailed screenplay. But I certainly have no idea of the scale of the effort it takes.
