Welcome back to your television serial making guidelines. If you will need a recap we had already seen the fixed kinds of necessities like storyline, characters or sets. Now let's move ahead to moving ones.
The Story and Dialogue Writers: Having just one single writer is a risky proposition. You need to ideally have a table of writers, if one doesn't blow out of his/her mind others deliver. Teri Meri Dooriyan The endless storyline needs an equally endless method of getting dialogues to continue the show episode by episode. In a particular scene you will have to create the most possible dialogues and because of this the board of writers would come as a bonus. Should they quarrel over it, that is only natural, maybe you obtain a brand new twist-wish idea to set up new angles-triangles or you will want to a good hyperbola in the story that'll again generate new streams of dialogues. You will have to 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 must be the toughest nut to break. Okay it's your infant and naturally you like to be the first choice and friend-philosopher-guide. In actual practice you must be considered a ruthless dictator taking decisions unilaterally and respecting no-one however the channel producers. In case a 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; others may have to be replaced; ushering in a time transition or injecting one and more absurd characters into the serial; and, so on. Katha Ankahee All these situations demand your decisions only. We advise you to help keep one or two episode directors too as may be the case in many soaps. We have good reasons. First, one director is directly identifiable and is a sitting duck for irate viewers, if any. Second, the endless monotony may be an excessive amount of for you personally and you could lose your sanity. Third, when it comes to channel producers the buck will always stop exclusively at your end only.
The Time Pass: This time pass is from the viewpoint of serial makers, not viewers. Making an endless serial is not at all easy. So you must carry on creating rooms for frequent time pass tactics. You do it insurance firms merry go rounds of dramatic reaction shots parading all your characters in the hall that'll get you over a number of episodes; insurance firms dialogues that never cease; giving extreme shock treatment to a number of characters who lose their ability to speak and communicate only through loud music that'll last as much as a number of episodes; by bringing in absurd characters and making their stories count; and, by the like.
Conclusion (?): Since every one of these guidelines are enforced relentlessly some normal doctrines like good wins over evil get neutralized. Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai serial Evildoers in serials carry on doing evil that'll include even murder as police 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 endless serials. At the receiving end we could only try become accustomed to it.
So, make your serial in India and have endless fun!
Chinmay Chakravarty is a professional specialized in the creative field with over two 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. Proficient in providing professional services in these related fields. Presently employed in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.
