The Repetitive Renaissance

Renaissance is one curiously weird word. Apart from symbolizing the liberalization of literature from the tight clutches of the Church into the free hands of the masses, it also has one more unique property. It is popularized by the course of events that are described by it. Renaissance marked the liberalization of literature after which only people started using this word more and more and hence it can be seen as a self-popularized word.

We all know renaissance happened in the medieval age but there is a renaissance happening today also. In fact renaissance happens in every era. Generally the trend is after the advent of a new technology it will remain in the hands of elite for few years and slowly transition into the hands of the masses.

After print media the major innovation is the screen media and the television (or broadcast media). Cinema had impacted our life the way no other media can do so. But Cinema production remained exclusive to the very few because of the high production costs involved in making a movie. This is unlike Church imposed medieval pre-renaissance restrictions on literature.

A scene from Raja Harishchandra – the first Indian Movie

So for more than half of the century Cinema remained in the hands of the few. They had decided what to make and the masses had followed what had been made. This worked well for earlier times but lately concerns were raised upon whether those few can actually represent the expectations of the masses. Nevertheless it is a tedious task which had been showing in the increasing number of not so well doing films each year. Nearly 1000 films are produced each year by the Indian cinema but we can assuredly say there are only a handful of films that makes an impact on us. Besides the movie outreach is just to 45 million compared to the 1.2 Billion populations in India.

So how to take this dream media to masses? Here comes the renaissance to revive its present day role. The advent of electronic era provided high technology recording devices like HQ Mobile cameras, DSLRs into the hands of the masses. While a common man can record videos on his own anytime, broadcasting this to the world is made much easier by the internet video platforms like youtube, dailymotion, etc. The result is one of the major discoveries of all time – “Short movies”.

No one would have believed a decade ago that a bunch of adolescents can come up with a compelling movie yet this is what happening now days.

The increasing awareness for shorts and their ability to convey a message or entertain in a matter of 15 – 30 mins makes the film viewing much easier than a regular movie where a person has to go to the movie hall some 30 mins before, get his seat, watch the movie for 2 to 3 hours and come back. Besides commuting in city traffics could take hours to reach back. Success of reality shows like Nalaya Iyakkunar has also increased the awareness of short films. Short movies are the T20’s of the cine industry.

As an extension of this trend, crowd funding has also started to pour in for short movies. For those who aren’t aware, crowd funding is a developing area in finance where projects are funded by masses. This can be compared to stock market as many will join hands by investing in a particular movie project and the expectation of the masses will determine which movie project to invest upon.

From the select few movie production is slowly moving into the hands of the masses. Today anyone can take a movie with minimal handled devices. Also the move towards crowd funding will be a major turn around and will stabilize the movie industry for a longer term.

A Fanfare in Transition

The first person through the wall is always bloody. This is an unbeatable universal. No matter which industry you choose you can see the proof to it. Starting from the Jewish bankers, to the intellectuals like Socrates and Galileo the world had unanimously casted a nasty look on the pioneers.

The highly looked upon industry of today, the dream factory is not an exception to this view. Starting from branding the actors as lowly creatures, the industry had cast a very dirty look upon the actors in the initial days. In fact the first of the actors came into acting because they do not have any other profession. Those were the 40's when cine industry was in the hands of producers. We still hear stories of actors were not being allowed to sit in chairs in front of producers. Since acting is not so different from drama many have successfully moved from drama industry into the cinema.

Then eventually the movie industry went into the hands of the directors. Many directors innovated various styles of movie making starting from Satyajit Ray to Bharathi Raja and took the control gear from producers into their hands.

Then came the reign of the actors. Compared to the initial days for actors in cinema the generation in 70s and 80s had usurped a great surge in fanfare. From Amitabh to Rajni this trend is all same. There may be variations in the time frame but the evolution sequence is same in all the industries across Indian Cinema. The success of the actors is the way they make you feel about them. In a movie they will make the audience feel like they are their neighbors. In real life however the audience will be left to feel like the foot dust. In fact this supremacy approach had worked for many actors and for few generations.

Imagine the fanfare of 80’s actors’. The season was marked by fans doing all crazy stuffs just to show that they love their actor more than fellow fans. Gigantic garlands, Milk baths for poster cutouts which could otherwise have been consumed and much other craziness. There are instances of mob fighting on the first day of movie releases, fights among school children too. Even instances of murders are also reported just because a person simply had not given the respect to an actor that he deserved(?).

Of course it is not to say that a fanfare following is bad. But too much of anything is definitely not good. So much so it went well the ‘awe’ factor that surrounds the actors is fading these days. Compare the same for the present generation artists with the previous generation? You can definitely see the difference.

But what is the reason for this trend change? There are many theories. Many say people are getting intelligent. Few say employment had improved taking the time out of fans that they otherwise use to show their following.

One major and perhaps a more sustainable reason to this is the advent of electronic media and internet. Both had made making quality videos with SLRs and broadcasting them world over a much easier task. The result is one can easily make a video of his own and watch it on screen. So the right to be seen on screen is getting diluted with the actors, no more exclusive to them.

Starting from being humble with not much of fanfare the actors enjoyed a gradual increase in fan following which went into the levels of worshipping during the late 80’s and the graph is reducing now a days back again to floor level. In the middle many actors had enjoyed a lot of fanfare not because they acted well but just because they got to appear on the screen. They are and will just remain an once overvalued stock that the market realized better to put money somewhere else.

The Arbitrage Life

Ever heard of the word “Arbitrage”? A finance word it is or more specifically a trading word. It denotes a situation where there is a difference in price for a product which a trader will take advantage of by buying at a lower price and selling at a higher price.

Arbitrage can be seen as two types. Market based arbitrages and transaction based arbitrages. Market based arbitrages exploit the price difference between two markets. When a same security is listed in both BSE & NSE while BSE has a lower price for the same stock than NSE an arbitrageur will buy the stock from BSE and sell the stocks at NSE. In common world this is what exporters and importers do. They sense the price difference of a product between two countries and export from the lower priced country to the higher priced country.

In a transaction based arbitrage an arbitrageur will exploit the price difference between the basket sizes of a product. Basically it happens between wholesalers and retailers. For example a dozen of apple may cost Rs.10 and a single apple may cost Re.1. In this case a retailer will buy a dozen of apples from the wholesaler, unpack them and sell them individually to Rs.12 and packet the difference of Rs.2 as a profit.

Although seemingly it looks like a trading word, this word has more implications in other parts of life as well. In fact every activity in this world is driven by one type of arbitrage or another. Though it is very simple when we look at it, mostly we tend to overlook this amazingly common property.

Take for example rivers flow from highest regions to the lowest regions – height arbitrage. This also explains how migration happens. In job market people move from the least to most opportunistic regions, mostly from villages to cities. The Indian outsourcing industry is working on the whole basis of arbitrage advantage, lower service charges compared to western economies. So is the case with China in manufacturing prices.

The idea of gene survival is also dependent on arbitrage. A guy and girl seek each other to fulfill what they lack from self, in order to carry out the gene propagation to next generation.

In fact the whole concept of change is initiating from arbitrage. From natural activities like cyclones and volcanoes (pressure arbitrage), to the evolution of species (opportunity, threat arbitrages) everything is driven by this single seed of difference. Also the whole idea of social imbalance also rests on arbitrage. Any society that doesn't fill the difference between its classes tend to fall apart. Valleys of difference in cultures, economy, race, color had torn many societies into pieces.

This article is just a simple analogy of arbitrage into the common life. It doesn't intend to teach anything nor does it