In the Mumbai suburbs of Andheri and Juhu, there are many small time acting schools which train aspiring actors. Attraction Acting School, Juhu runs multiple batches of acting classes. Waseem Sir keeps the students under his observation. The subjects covered are Body Language, Voice Modulation, Imagination and Fight. Stella Adler is another popular institute. It holds classes in Kalaripayatta aimed at fitness. Role plays form a crucial part of the acting course syllabus. There are other subjects such as scene study, improvisation, emotions and camera study for practicals. Kreating Charakters, Four Bungalows, Andheri advises the students to exploit their strengths. The acting coach here is Kamal Nayan Chaturvedi (Vidur ). The school is eight years old. Language and diction are most important parts of training. Action and dance are favourite with the students. In fight sequences, they teach the students how to control their punches, keeping them just two centimetres away from the target. They accept small group of students — say sixteen at a time. The fee quoted is anything from Rs 10 thousand to Rs 1 lac or more.
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Sales Promotion
A product is considered in the context of its functional utility, its cost and its psychology. A customer establishes the relationship with a product or brand on the basis of three factors. It has to score over the competing products/brands. A customer’s attitude and behaviour must be appreciated while he buys the product. Sales Promotion is all about behaviour. We have to encourage people to go in for our products. A buyer’s attitude is thus formed or changed. It is hoped that once he tries the product by the encouragement , he will continue the relationship and become loyal to the product.
Sales Promotion is one of the several methods by which a company attempts to change or influence the behaviour of the target audience in the immediate short term. The other communication tools are advertising, publicity, direct selling and direct marketing. All these can be used either singly or in combination to get the optimum effect. Sales Promotion, whenever chosen, may require short-term changes in all the four P’s of the marketing mix so as to bring about a change in behaviour. It is associated with risks — it can succeed wonderfully or can fail miserably. But the rewards of success are high.
The Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP), UK defines it as :
a range of tactical marketing techniques within a strategic marketing framework to add value to a product in order to achieve specific sales and marketing objectives.
In short, SP provides temporary additional value to a brand so as to achieve specific marketing objectives.
Though it is temporary, it shoul be thoughtfully discussed how long SP should continue, so that it does not become an everyday affair. The additional value could be in terms of money ( price-off, free sample ) , kind ( gift or contest ) or intangibles ( personality associations or charity ). SP has to identify the objectives carefully.
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Gucci Capitalism
Noreena Hertz, Cambridge professor and economist-author speaks about Gucci capitalism which believes that market resolves all the problems on its own, and the government shouldstay away. It also believes that wealth trickles down. It emphasises what we own more.It could be a Gucci bag rather than the quality of air we breathe or the quality of health care we have. Gucci capitalism is dying. The governments are taking measures to reign in the behaviour of banks, say putting restrictions on the banker’s pay and bonuses. The Danish govrnment has put in an obesity tax on fast food companies, which is like saying that businesses have to take responsibility for the negative impact for the things they do. There are uprisings e.g. Occupy Wall Street. The next phase of capitalism will recognise the significance of community. There should be balance between business gains and social environmental justice. The focus would be on collaboration rather than competition. Wikipedia is a collaborative model.
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Media Effects
Media effects have many interpretations. There could be political, social, cultural, psychological, economical and moral effects of media depending upon the perspective we investigate. Advertisers are interested in the effects of media on the consumers. Parents are concerned about the effects of media on the children. Media may offer adult material or material that provokes violence and delinquency. Media effects could be long term or short term and deep or superficial. The fashion of the day is an example of short term effect. Some effects are permanent, and some transient..
Media effects could be considered as influences and impacts. These could be distinguished semantically. Even media must be defined properly. Media could be considered as a channel or vehicle of content or could be considered as an industry and business. In social sciences, all the terms are not standardised.
The team effects assumes that the media is an actor and the audience it caters to is acted upon. It assumes passivity of the audience. This is not always true. Media effects do not work in isolation but in collaboration with many other variables. These effects do change the attitude and behaviour of the people.Such change corresponds to how individual and group respond to the various stimuli provided by the mass media. Media influence is exerted even without changing the behaviour of the people.
We can say media and its audience interact with each other in a complex way. It is better to use the term interaction rather than effects.Just as media offers a variety of content, the audience receiving it also is diverse and varied. The context of media consumption also varies a great deal.
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Film Editing Today
The editing room in the 1980s had large machines such as Steenback, Kem, Movieola, Acmade etc. The room smelt of acetic acid. The films were cut and pasted physically.
The editing, as we know, has since the changed. The change appeared in the 1990s. Avid came with the first editing software. It was run on Apple’s Macintosh II. Film editing became as simple as editing a word document.The late Renu Saluja was the pioneer to use such a system. The hardware capability was low — limited disk space. It was possible to edit only 20 minutes of a movie and the disk was full.The edited portion was saved. Then everything was deleted to accommodate the next tranche of 20 minutes. In 1993, 4GB hard disk appeared in one Jhuhu studio. Avid software called Film Composer was used. Since mid-90s till 2000, Avid with Mac was a preferred combination for editing. The software used for TV programmes and ad films was Media Composer. Similarly, Film Composer was used for feature films. Small films used other Mac-based software called Media 100 and Adobe Premiere. Later movie editing became much easier with a range of Apple machines — MacII, Quadra, PPC9500/132, G3, G4,G5 and MacPro.
All editingis these days completed on Mac-based Avid and Final Cut Pro (FCP) systems.
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Brand Logo: Visual Signature of the Brand
Brand logo is a combination of shape and colour. Brand name may or may not form part of the brand logo. It is a visual representation of the brand. Each brand name evokes certain colours in its logo, say red colour and the Tiger biscuits. This is colour distinctiveness of the logo. In short, a logo is a visual signature of the brand.
The elements of brand logo are — a brand name, geometric shape, colour, slogan and font. The most widely used colours are red and white. Some logos use red colour e.g. Thums Up, Pepsodent, Kit Kat etc. Some logos use blue colour e.g. Pepsi, Samsung. Some use yellow colour e.g. Sundrop. Red and white colour logos are those of Coke, Kit Kat, Nestle. Most logos have geometric shapes e.g. Star Plus, Kingfisher, HSBC. There are many without geometric shape e.g. Nescafe, Lux, 7 Up. Perhaps these brands are associated with package colour. Liril is packaged in a green wrapper.
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Film Producers
In previous years, films were produced by studios such as Bombay Talkies, Prabhat, Minerva Movitone, Rk, Navketan and Filmistan. These days there is prolific production of feature films. Along with these, we have production of TV serials, reality shows, music videos and ad films. There are corporates who have entered into film production. However, many become producers on individual basis, earning the nick name single producers. They are responsible for more than 50 per cent production of films. Many of these producers do not go beyond one film. There are no training facilities for producers. They learn on the job. The starting point is the ability to invest. The venture could be a partnership. It may so happen that cost overruns leaves behind a few partners whereas others sever the partnership relationship. Producers introduce their own finance plus borrowed finance either from financiers or the institutions like banks. The firm that produces the film must register itself with the producers’ association IMPAA. There are regional associations where a regional film producer registers himself. The producer has to appoint an Executive Producer and sets up a Unit manned by a full-time and part-time members. A producer must be aware of the different aspects of the film making process and the challenges in the changing environment. There should be understanding of the medium. The first consideration is the choice of the story or plot. Then comes the screenplay. Later comes the casting. The shooting involves cinematography and art director. There are choreographers, lyricists and music directors. Even before the story is selected, we have to appoint a director and assess his competence. A producer takes interest from the concept to commissioning of the whole project. A movie is a business as well as a medium. Both these components must be balanced.
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Reita Faria, Miss World from India
Reita Faria is now 72 (2014 ). She has married an endocrinologist. They worked together at Boston and then moved to Ireland. She now stays at Dublin with her husband. The couple visited Mumbai for the fiftieth reunion of her college — Grant Medical College. Five decades ago, this Matunga girl with Goan roots submitted her photograph just casually for Eve’s Weekly contest in response to an ad when she was just six months away from becoming a doctor. She won the contest and was sent for Miss World, and won that title too. She entered the contest with a borrowed swimsuit and had to buy heels for one pound in London out of 3 pounds foreign exchange she had. She has retained her stilettos, but has not work them since then.
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Foundations of Advertising : Chunawalla Sethia
Some 30 years back in India.India was yet to make her tryst with destiny as a global economic power. Back the production, manufacturing and engineering ruled the roost and marketing was an afterthought. Consumption was frowned upon and austerity was glorified. Consumers were free to choose any colour as long as it was black. The balance sheets were admired which carried impressive physical assets. Intangible assets like brand names were not recognised. It was in this context that Chunawalla and Sethia decided to pen a book on advertising called Foundations of Advertising. It was their firm belief that India will enter a consumer age, as green shoots of that age were visible then. The age will be marked by consumer choice and the biggest assets will be brands. Companies will not be valued by their turnover, but by the equity their brands possessed. The brands will be built by marketing and advertising.The book has lived up to the expectations of thousands of users and is going strength from strength.
The 8th revised edition and its 25th reprint has just been released.Available on all e commerce sites, home shopping networks, leading book sellers and 14 offices of Himalaya Publishing House, Mumbai.
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Prof Roshan Taneja Teaches You How to Act
Professor Roshan Taneja is the founder and former head of the acting department of FTTI, Pune. He is the pioneer of method acting in India. He had been to New York where he had been trained under the renowned Sanford Meisner and Sydney Pollock. He has been teaching acting for the last 51 years. He runs now The Roshan Taneja School of Acting with Acting Exercises and Scenes to suit the times., keeping in mind the universality of emotions. They offer a four-month Diploma course, and conduct weekend courses. Apart from Mumbai, the school has branches in Hyderabad and Kolkata. They also run summer camps in the USA.