Welcome back to your television serial making guidelines. If you need a recap we had already seen the fixed forms of necessities like storyline, characters or sets. Now let's move on to moving ones.
The Story and Dialogue Writers: Having just one writer is really a risky proposition. You ought to ideally have a board of writers, if one fails to blow out of his/her mind others deliver. Teri Meri Dooriyan The constant storyline needs an equally endless supply of dialogues to continue the show episode by episode. In a certain scene you must create the most possible dialogues and because of this the board of writers would come as a bonus. When they quarrel over it, that's only natural, maybe you get a fresh twist-wish idea to put in new angles-triangles or you will want to a good hyperbola in the story that'll again generate new streams of dialogues. You must keep a wrist watch on viewers too; boring them now and then is okay, but you must never drive them mad. The channel producers, remember?
The Director: Because you are the director you should be the toughest nut to break. Okay it is your baby and naturally you like to be the leader and friend-philosopher-guide. However in actual practice you must be described as a ruthless dictator taking decisions unilaterally and respecting no body nevertheless the channel producers. If your particular character actor is creating problems s/he must get killed in the serial; on the demand of the producers a dead character may have to be brought alive; some others may have to be replaced; ushering in an occasion transition or injecting one and more absurd characters in to the serial; and, so on. Katha Ankahee Every one of these situations demand your decisions only. We advise you to keep 1 or 2 episode directors too as could be the case in lots of soaps. We've good reasons. First, one director is directly identifiable and is really a sitting duck for irate viewers, if any. Second, the endless monotony might be a lot of for you and you could lose your sanity. Third, as for the channel producers the buck will always stop exclusively at your end only.
The Time Pass: This time around pass is from the viewpoint of serial makers, not viewers. Making an endless serial is never easy. So you must go on creating rooms for frequent time pass tactics. You get it done insurance firms merry go rounds of dramatic reaction shots parading all your characters in the hall that'll take you over a number of episodes; insurance firms dialogues that never cease; by providing extreme shock treatment to a number of characters who lose their ability to speak and communicate only through loud music that'll last around a number of episodes; by bringing in absurd characters and making their stories count; and, by the like.
Conclusion (?): Since all these guidelines are enforced relentlessly some normal doctrines like good wins over evil get neutralized. Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai serial Evildoers in serials go on doing evil that'll include even murder as law enforcement authorities are never called in, because entry of police may veer the serial to a logical end. You simply compensate by creating temporary relief measures now and then. Thus, the antagonist becomes the important thing to the success of constant serials. At the receiving end we are able to only try get accustomed to it.
So, make your serial in India and have constant fun!
Chinmay Chakravarty is really a professional specialized in the creative field with over 2 decades of experience in journalistic writing, media co-ordination, film script writing, film dubbing, film & video making, management of international film festivals and editing of books & journals. Experienced in providing professional services in these related fields. Presently employed in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.
