Watch your words: all eyes on Home Theatre
Nalme Nachiyar
Artists are often considered a restless lot, used to ideating, experimenting, creating and presenting their work to the audience regularly. So when the lockdown forced people indoors, the arts scene took a massive hit. Concerts cancelled, galleries shut, performances and stage shows put indefinitely on hold. The film and TV industry too came to a grinding halt, leaving thousands of daily wage workers without any income. But in midst of this crisis, the more fortunate members of the arts and entertainment fraternity also saw an opportunity to adapt to newer mediums and forms of expression.
For actor and theatreperson P D Sathish, or PD as he is better known, it came together in the form of Home Theatre, a video book series. A first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, the project has brought together popular names from the Kannada TV, film, theatre and literature scene. “When Covid-19 struck, all our plays got cancelled. But we still wanted to do something with our time, and not necessarily to raise money,” says PD. “A lot of people had already moved theatre online, and I myself had done a scene reading on Zoom. But I wanted to do something which hadn’t been attempted before and I thought, why not get everybody to read a book?”
The search brought PD to Life is Beautiful, a collection of thoughts and anecdotes by journalist and Kannada writer Girish Rao Hatwar, or Jogi. The book has 51 chapters, including the preface, all of them just about two pages long.
“I’d written the book ten years ago when the digital world was consuming people. I had in mind young adults who were new to reading. The preface is titled “Ee book annu neevu odabedi” (Don’t read this book). As a writer, it was a friendly rebuke at those who were spending hours on the internet then – like admonishing a child who is bound to be attracted to the forbidden. The book has aged well and I decided to go ahead and read it,” he says.
With many artistes responding enthusiastically, a second video book - Keshava Malagi’s Anagada Dhare - was soon under way to accommodate all that talent-in-isolation. “Now I’m planning for a third one and then, maybe a fourth! We hope to have at least four books in this series,” says PD.
Recorded from the comfort of their homes, the videos have been edited by Karan Ananth, director of Sathya Katha Prasanga, one of the shorts in Katha Sangama.
Audiobooks have been around for decades, but it’s only in the last decade that a global market has opened up to this marriage of technology and literature. While audiobooks helped a time-strapped generation keep up with the world of words, PD’s dream for his videobook series is humbler.
“Reading is an acquired taste. But it’s a habit one has to cultivate…. Through Home Theatre, if I can get at least 20 people to read books, I think I would have reached my target,” he says.
Home Theatre is a non-profit effort but PD wants to be able to bring in sponsors at some point, and even if for a few pages, just to pay for the editing. But the fledging project has other issues to iron out first.
Technically, a video book requires more sensory engagement than an audiobook. And if a short collection like Life is Beautiful stands at 3+ hours in the form of a videobook, the challenge is manifold for a full-fledged novel.
“As per universal standard, if nothing is happening visually in a frame for 90 seconds, the viewer loses focus. So in the first video book, while the right side of the frame has the title, name of the reader, the chapter numbers, on the left side, we have the actual pages of the book. So viewers can see if the narrator is reading correctly, thereby increasing engagement,” explains PD.
Even in the second book, where the dialogues are in the North Karnataka dialect, the team has tried to experiment with the editing by introducing abrupt transitions from one narrator to the next, sometimes mid-sentence!
The other constraint is copyright. “For the first two books, the writers were very happy to cooperate. But I can’t touch anything by Karanth, Kuvempu or Tejaswi, and novellas are rare in Kannada. So finding the right book, which is around 60 pages and is also an easy read is the problem,” he says.
As a director, PD hopes that the performed text, infused with the styles and mannerisms of every artiste, will offer potential readers a new perspective.
Jogi agrees. “If the person reading it out (in the video) is doing it well, then a voice that is other than that of the writer’s lends itself to the book. So a normal reader identifies with it at two levels: the written word and the spoken word. This combination heightens the experience.”
Actor Radhika Narayan says, “When you are an actor, you naturally want to emote whatever you're reading. There is a split second of suspense in the narration and it was nice to have been able to bring that out!”
She also believes that a book like Life is Beautiful is apt for these times. “My story is about battling our inner negativity and just giving things a try in life.”
In attempting to discover and embrace the new, Home Theatre seems to be doing just that. Because Covid or not, the show must go on.
Nalme Nachiyar
Artists are often considered a restless lot, used to ideating, experimenting, creating and presenting their work to the audience regularly. So when the lockdown forced people indoors, the arts scene took a massive hit. Concerts cancelled, galleries shut, performances and stage shows put indefinitely on hold. The film and TV industry too came to a grinding halt, leaving thousands of daily wage workers without any income. But in midst of this crisis, the more fortunate members of the arts and entertainment fraternity also saw an opportunity to adapt to newer mediums and forms of expression.
For actor and theatreperson P D Sathish, or PD as he is better known, it came together in the form of Home Theatre, a video book series. A first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, the project has brought together popular names from the Kannada TV, film, theatre and literature scene. “When Covid-19 struck, all our plays got cancelled. But we still wanted to do something with our time, and not necessarily to raise money,” says PD. “A lot of people had already moved theatre online, and I myself had done a scene reading on Zoom. But I wanted to do something which hadn’t been attempted before and I thought, why not get everybody to read a book?”
The search brought PD to Life is Beautiful, a collection of thoughts and anecdotes by journalist and Kannada writer Girish Rao Hatwar, or Jogi. The book has 51 chapters, including the preface, all of them just about two pages long.
“I’d written the book ten years ago when the digital world was consuming people. I had in mind young adults who were new to reading. The preface is titled “Ee book annu neevu odabedi” (Don’t read this book). As a writer, it was a friendly rebuke at those who were spending hours on the internet then – like admonishing a child who is bound to be attracted to the forbidden. The book has aged well and I decided to go ahead and read it,” he says.
With many artistes responding enthusiastically, a second video book - Keshava Malagi’s Anagada Dhare - was soon under way to accommodate all that talent-in-isolation. “Now I’m planning for a third one and then, maybe a fourth! We hope to have at least four books in this series,” says PD.
Recorded from the comfort of their homes, the videos have been edited by Karan Ananth, director of Sathya Katha Prasanga, one of the shorts in Katha Sangama.
Audiobooks have been around for decades, but it’s only in the last decade that a global market has opened up to this marriage of technology and literature. While audiobooks helped a time-strapped generation keep up with the world of words, PD’s dream for his videobook series is humbler.
“Reading is an acquired taste. But it’s a habit one has to cultivate…. Through Home Theatre, if I can get at least 20 people to read books, I think I would have reached my target,” he says.
Home Theatre is a non-profit effort but PD wants to be able to bring in sponsors at some point, and even if for a few pages, just to pay for the editing. But the fledging project has other issues to iron out first.
Technically, a video book requires more sensory engagement than an audiobook. And if a short collection like Life is Beautiful stands at 3+ hours in the form of a videobook, the challenge is manifold for a full-fledged novel.
“As per universal standard, if nothing is happening visually in a frame for 90 seconds, the viewer loses focus. So in the first video book, while the right side of the frame has the title, name of the reader, the chapter numbers, on the left side, we have the actual pages of the book. So viewers can see if the narrator is reading correctly, thereby increasing engagement,” explains PD.
Even in the second book, where the dialogues are in the North Karnataka dialect, the team has tried to experiment with the editing by introducing abrupt transitions from one narrator to the next, sometimes mid-sentence!
The other constraint is copyright. “For the first two books, the writers were very happy to cooperate. But I can’t touch anything by Karanth, Kuvempu or Tejaswi, and novellas are rare in Kannada. So finding the right book, which is around 60 pages and is also an easy read is the problem,” he says.
As a director, PD hopes that the performed text, infused with the styles and mannerisms of every artiste, will offer potential readers a new perspective.
Jogi agrees. “If the person reading it out (in the video) is doing it well, then a voice that is other than that of the writer’s lends itself to the book. So a normal reader identifies with it at two levels: the written word and the spoken word. This combination heightens the experience.”
Actor Radhika Narayan says, “When you are an actor, you naturally want to emote whatever you're reading. There is a split second of suspense in the narration and it was nice to have been able to bring that out!”
She also believes that a book like Life is Beautiful is apt for these times. “My story is about battling our inner negativity and just giving things a try in life.”
In attempting to discover and embrace the new, Home Theatre seems to be doing just that. Because Covid or not, the show must go on.
Comments
Post a Comment
Tell me what you think...