Welcome back to the television serial making guidelines. If you'll need a recap we had already seen the fixed types of necessities like storyline, characters or sets. Now let's proceed to moving ones.
The Story and Dialogue Writers: Having only one writer is just a risky proposition. You need to ideally have a table of writers, if one fails to blow out of his/her mind the others deliver. Teri Meri Dooriyan The endless storyline needs a similarly endless method of getting dialogues to keep on the show episode by episode. In a specific scene you will need to create the utmost possible dialogues and with this the board of writers would come as a bonus. If they quarrel over it, that is only natural, maybe you get a brand new twist-wish idea to put in new angles-triangles or you will want to even a hyperbola in the story that may again generate new streams of dialogues. You will need to keep a wrist watch on viewers too; boring them now and then is okay, but you should never drive them mad. The channel producers, remember?
The Director: Because you are the director you ought to be the toughest nut to break. Okay it's your child and naturally you want to be the best choice and friend-philosopher-guide. In actual practice you should be a ruthless dictator taking decisions unilaterally and respecting no body nevertheless 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 an occasion transition or injecting one and more absurd characters to the serial; and, so on. Katha Ankahee Each one of these situations demand your decisions only. We advise you to keep a couple of episode directors too as could be the case in lots of soaps. We have good reasons. First, one director is directly identifiable and is just a sitting duck for irate viewers, if any. Second, the endless monotony might be an excessive amount of for you and you might lose your sanity. Third, are you aware that channel producers the buck will always stop exclusively at your end only.
The Time Pass: Now pass is from the viewpoint of serial makers, not viewers. Making an endless serial is generally not very easy. So you should carry on creating rooms for frequent time pass tactics. You do it by having merry go rounds of dramatic reaction shots parading your entire characters in the hall that may get you over one or more episodes; by having dialogues that never cease; giving extreme shock treatment to one or more characters who lose their capability to speak and communicate only through loud music that may last around one or more episodes; by bringing in absurd characters and making their stories count; and, by the like.
Conclusion (?): Since each 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 may include even murder as law enforcement 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 can only try get accustomed to it.
So, make your serial in India and have endless fun!
Chinmay Chakravarty is just a professional specialized in the creative field with over 2 full 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. Experienced in providing professional services in these related fields. Presently working in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.
