TV Review: Gateway
DIRECTORS’ PIX
The new reality show for filmmakers is the same as every other reality show around: a guilty pleasure, but little else.
MAR 28, 2008 - IN A MORE INNOCENT AGE, the most commonly experienced – or at least, commonly discussed – anxiety dream used to be that of finding yourself naked in public. This revelation would then result in your shrink’s diagnosis of your feelings of exposure and vulnerability, embarrassment and shame. Today, though, I wonder if anxious people everywhere aren’t plopping themselves on their therapists’ couches and confessing to finding themselves trapped in a reality show. “Doctor, I had this terrible dream last night, where I was on Indian Idol and my voice was all off-key and the judges were shaking their heads in disgust and the audiences were pointing fingers at me and hooting and jeering…”
That’s the rest of us. But the people who actually end up on these shows apparently have no such issues. They want (and perhaps even need) to be – metaphorically speaking – naked in public. They need to be seen, heard, discussed, abused, tolerated, hated, loved. They need the high drama of hanging in suspense as a juror intones, “I’d be happy to let X and Y go.” They need the attention of a camera as they go about their lives on the show – biting lips in apprehension, looking upward silently in prayer, blinking back tears, helping an eliminated contestant pack for his journey back to someplace he will no longer pose a threat from.
All this and more is available for your viewership – voyeurship? – on the Sony Pix reality show, Gateway. Modelled along the lines of On the Lot, the show features filmmakers competing for an internship (6-8 weeks with Ashok Amritraj, working on development and pre-production), followed by the opportunity to direct a Hollywood film. In one of the episodes I caught, the contestants were asked to shoot on location – on a railway-station platform, whose overfamiliarity was exploited in increasingly creative ways, especially in a brilliant comic short revolving around a travelling Ramlila troupe.
Two contestants were eliminated that day – Ashok Amritraj’s catchphrases are, “You’re safe,” and “Your story ends here” – and in the next episode, the remaining filmmakers were asked to edit an action sequence from the rushes given to them. That resulted in a flurry of activity, with many pensive chins being scratched and many plaintive voices pleading for more time. The work was then evaluated by Sanjay Gupta, Rajat Kapoor and Anurag Basu, who saw to it that two more contestants were edited out of future episodes. I’m curious about who will end up with a career in Hollywood (and the eternal envy and hatred of the other contestants), but I doubt I’ll stick around for future episodes. From what I saw of Gateway, it’s exactly like every other reality show: a guilty pleasure, but only in small doses. After that, it’s time for Cut!
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Rangan, I thought the show is worth the time, take away the “reality drama” part and one gets to learn all these aspects of filmmaking (like say storyboarding) and with some good commentary and insights from rajatkapur and anurag basu.
Atleast for an aspiring filmmaker like me the big takeaway was its not easy to become a maniratnam!
Siva
Baradwaj, reg. “On the Lot”, Did you get to watch it in any Indian channel or did you know about it from your earlier stay in US?
“filmmakers competing for an internship (6-8 weeks with Ashok Amritraj, working on development and pre-production)”
Hmmm…the lucky winner has an impressive array of antecendents in the Ashok Amritraj filmography to benchmark off:
He can opt for early Amritraj soft porn Classics like the Night Eyes series or Van Damme chop socky Gold Standards like Double Impact.
Or,closer to home he can always tempt Rajini into making a second foray into Hollywood a la the masterful Bloodstone or produce another milestone in Tamil Cinema like Jeans.
Oh ok..I’m just being a prick:-) If this show unearths a few talented film-makers who need to languish in low-budget hell before hitting the Big Time, then it’s worth this exercise in “public therapy”.
After all, James Cameron’s first movie was Piranha 2: The Spawning
Siva: But this is just glimpses of the process. The main stuff is the “reality” business. But yes, some of the comments from the judges are insightful.
Vijay: Haven’t seen it. This is GK from friends who’ve watched it.
KayKay: That was funny as hell. Night Eyes… Was that the one with Cindy Pickett?
brangan: I’m not into much TV-watching lately (and certainly NOT reality shows) but its always pleasurable to pick up the pulse of popular paranoia every once in a while. So Gateway is the new conduit into which reality-show addicts over there are willingly plugging their heads into — only this time, instead of having their brains completely sucked out, they’re allowed to assimilate (by osmosis?) spurts of movie-making wisdom. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal at all! Now what you’re “allowed” (the prize is an internship, remember? in other words, indentured labor) to do with all that wisdom is the key question and KayKay here has an “awfully impressive” array of possibilities the candidates can potentially start projecting across their mental landscapes before their “guilty pleasure” dreamathon culminates in a “Cut!”
Mr. B, Night Eyes had Tanya (A View To A Kill Bond girl) Roberts while I believe the subsequent sequels had Shannon Tweed.
Cindy Pickett - that sounds familiar
Sagarika: You haven’t missed much.
KayKay: Ah, fundas
Vinod: Memories, man, memories. I’m sure that cut-out from Safire theatre flashed before your eyes as you typed this. Shameless fellow!
He he he. I also remember a certain Kalia story.