Coronavirus has changed life as we know it, and the crisis has hit industries hard. Bollywood too will be seen making some drastic changes to its formats of filmmaking. Now, guidelines are being drawn up to decide a plan of action in the dicey world once the lockdown lifts.
The new guidelines would mean ensuring social distancing on sets. The mechanics of the whole situation will be hard to ensure but will have to be done. This may also put a question mark on intimate scenes in films. Will we have to return to the flowers?
No more intimate scenes in the post-pandemic world?
The status of intimate scenes in Bollywood has always been highly contested. Now, even more so in the era were social distancing will have to become the norm. The Coronavirus pandemic has left most thing uncertain about the future.
Bollywood will have to make a paradigm shift in every step of filmmaking to ensure the needs of the post-pandemic world are met. Right from the stories of characters, to the filmmaking process such as the cast and crew, exotic travel locations, hygiene, right down to the cinematic experience and big-screen viewing. Right now, filmmakers are looking at an unrecognisable future.
Shooting will require guidelines, such as how scheduling will be done. What will be the precautions to take? There's a lot at stake, and government guidelines aplenty. Still, it's in the best interest of the audience and the makers if guidelines are set and adhered to.
A meeting was recently held on Zoom on May 11 with representatives from various countries including the UK, India and the US. It was to discuss the SOPs that would become the norm once shooting resumes. Joint secretary of CINTAA, Amit Behl also attended the meeting. He said that it was imperative for India to join hands with the rest of the world when there was so much cultural exchange through films and to protect both filmmaking as a practising and the lives involved.
What was discussed in the meeting included the filming of intimate scenes, wherein filmmakers would have to have virologist on set. Behl added that guidelines set for infection control by the government would have to be strictly followed.
What we can be sure of is that for a while there will be changes at the scriptwriting stage to ensure that display of romance will be limited till there are more clever ways to use the camera putting the least burden on the actors to physically enact those scenes. Siddharth Anand Kaul vice president of Saregama said that in their untitled project they will use blocking techniques to shoot intimate scenes and that the scenes will be choreographed, moreover, they'll shoot the scenes to the end of the shooting schedule so as to ensure the project isn't affected.
Looks like we'll be returning to the good old flowers and other metaphors for intimacy. It seems like all the hue and cries over the years about Bollywood's conservative approach was for nought?
