Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Jimmy... Jimmy... jimmy...Jib

80% of times the Jib shot used in our films or television serials are almost unwanted. Its like an escape route - When out of ideas and imagination go for the Jimmy Jib shot. The moving camera will at least do something to your frame - and in a way engage the audience, if the actors are not able to engage or worse - if your filmmaking/story-telling techniques are not able to engage.

Its a dangerous route that many filmmakers are taking. One of my friends commented that if the Jib was not invented than RGV would have been a bartender by now. But I dont quite agree to it. Consider his earlier works, they were done with minimum resources and maximum content. But then if you take all of his later films almost all of it have so much excessive use of such gimmicks like jib - and its almost as if he's lost on the "substance" part. Only the style remains. Watch Nishabd's simplest of the simple scene - when Amitabh Bachchan enters the house in his jeep. The shot starts from top, the camera is perched on the tree and swing it comes down and revolves round and round with Amitabh in centre - on watching it i felt - RGV's really lost it with his Jib. Was Nishabd a horror film or what. After 2 or 3 such attempts from RGV, when i started watching Sarkar Raj - i got so bored in the first 20 mins with his used, abused, tried and tested camera angles - that i thought i could utilize this time in a better fashion.


This is just a case in point. I better not open the idiot box and its excessive use of Jib. Will leave it here. Come on filmmakers we have such powerful tools with us, why to go out of ideas?

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