Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Out of focus

I happened to watch a bharatnatyam dance show on TV recently - a family friend's daughter was participating. It was a contest with a few theme rounds and had Sudha Chandran as the host and another dancer as the guest judge.

I was surprised to see that the cameraman had absolutely no idea how to capture the dance- the camera angle kept changing every few seconds which was not only a strain on the eyes, but also kept shifting the audience perspective continuously leaving them confused.

What really annoyed me was that the camera wandered, even as the dancers were performing, to focus on the judge's bangles, the host's elaborate bindi, their sarees and ther smiles. All these were very pretty indeed but distracting the audience from the performanc itself.

Finally when the 30 minutes show ended, I only remembered the bindi, sarees, bangles and a few disconnected snippets of the dance!

Wondering if all shows are like this one ...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now this is a coincidence. Only yesterday there was a bharatnatyam performance on a early morning talk show here. The camera seemed always a beat off from the dance. It would go close up when the dancer struck a pose that reqd. a long shot for effect and vice versa. I chalked it up to inexperience with the dance form for the camera man. Apparently the indian counterparts are not much better.
Or perhaps, Sringar and whoever the banglemakers were were sponsoring the show :D

KP

Vini aka Pooh! said...

Thaka dimi tha right? They edit so much that you never end up realizing it was a dance show. I think it is done deliberately so that there are no questions about who actually deserved to win

Swapna Raghu Sanand said...

I think that is very unprofessional and the feedback should be shared with them so that they don't repeat this.

Swaram said...

That's bad! Takes away all that excitement/joy in watching the show.

I feel so when I watch cricket on Neo ;)

Asha said...

This is what happens with a sponsored show. The sponsors pay for the limelight.

Anu...:) said...

Well,there are hardly any good dance-shows these days.Even the participating girls lack the passion for dance,and so does the crew conducting the dance-shows!

Uma said...

KP- Camera doing a close where long shot is required is the most irritating thing...seriously! I think the cameramen try to apply all that the tricks they know on every single show!

Pooh - right! quite right that it is impossble to question...

Swapna, Swaram - yes, it takes away all the excitement!

Asha - I don't think the sponsors were to blame here... or maybe...

Anu - one tends to get that feeling ,,,