AN INTERVIEW WITH REVATHI

This movie needed a girl from South India who gets married to a guy from North India and they are in the US. At the same time, I needed somebody who would look like the mother of a seventeen-year-old daughter. And also have that young vivacious, spontaneity within her. And somehow Shobana fitted the bill very well. When I spoke to her, she was very adjusting, I know her as a friend, it was easy working with her. We also looked at a couple of others, but in the end we decided on Shobana as she suited the role well.

Technically there is a lot of difference. Marketing is different, the kind of audience you have to cater for is different, and the way of the story is written is different.

Considering the number of channels that are there, and all of them offering almost the same kind of programmes, how do you cut through the clutter?

It is good that there are many channels; the audience have a choice that way. And it brings in competition, which is also good in the sense that it helps improve quality. There is clutter, but you have to understand the audience’s preference, to make a successful serial, as it is a totally different audience.

The problem in India is, though the serials are made for children, the TRP ratings are based on Adult responses. So the true picture does not emerge. If the serial is made for children, it should be children who evaluate it. The TRPs should be based on their responses. How can adults evaluate a children's serial? And unless or until there are good TRPs, it is very difficult to get sponsorship. So that's the situation, as far as children's serials go.

Simply, because we cannot match the quality that is available abroad, technically speaking. In fact a lot of the sketches go out from India to studios abroad, but when it comes to animation, we are still lacking behind in the technical aspects.

I really do not know how I would go about evaluating the Tamil Film Industry, the only thing I can say is, cinema is art and art has no limitations. This is a profession like any other, and it has to be treated as such. If you have committed yourself for a particular call sheet you will better be there available at the sets, simply because you are being paid for it. I learnt my lesson in professionalism very early in my career; I worked with Manorama in one particular film. The shooting was scheduled for six in the morning, and she was asked to come ready with make-up. She was there, sharp at six in the morning. I know if she had to be there at six in the morning, she would have had to be up by four. And at the shooting spot, there was no place to sit and relax. The film was being shot in a small school in a village, all she could do was sit inside one of the classrooms in the school. And for some reason or the other the director could not shoot a single scene that day. He came up to her and apologised sometime in the evening, that we couldn't shoot that day. All she said was... It's ok, no problem, before she left. Being an experienced and old actress she could have thrown her weight around, but she was so casual about the whole thing. So that was something I learnt that day.

They are good. When I started I hardly had any idea about make-up, clothes, appearance. But now-a-days, most of them when they start, they have already taken lessons in acting and dancing, they know so much about make-up, how they will look on camera and things like that. But the current actors and actresses are really casual about their star status, they do not mind being seen in public, they like to dine out, go to the discotheques like anybody else.

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