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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