Not on your screen

One would think it would be in Goregaon Filmcity but the new Bollywood Dream Tour which offers a sneak peek behind the scenes in film and TV are conducted at a studio in Malad W The building behind a mall the suburb is deceptively bland looking This tour is in association with Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation MTDC First the Alfa Vista Tower isnrsquot a really a tower So finding it is tough for tourists Even lsquoThe Bollywood Dream Tourrsquo poster outside is partially obscured by two building compounds Yet this is Bollywood where things are never what they seem so we decided to check out MTDCrsquos new tourAT WORK Sanjay Verma l and Karishma Mehta r dub a scene from Devdas to show how dubbing is done PicsVarun SinghBeginningAt the door a man at the reception asks for the tickets Shoes have to be removed and kept on a rack at the entrance We were informed that there is a shooting on and so we had to be silentWALL OF FAME The Bollywood singersrsquo caricatures in the tour introduction roomThere were only two tourists that day mdash my colleague Varun Singh and me Arvind Puri handling the coordination of the tour says ldquoTen is the maximum number of people who can come for one slot We get from 58 people for every slot But today since the shooting was on we did not allow on the spot bookingsrdquoWORK SPACE Verma shows how foot step sounds are recorded in a studioOne was a bit sceptical of his version We were lead to the screening room where there were 10 chairs with posters of famous Bollywood films and singers from the industry We waited from 1125 am to 1145 am when the Bollywood Dream Tour finally commenced 15 minutes late We were given a glass of water and a packet of chipsKarishma Mehta the guide says ldquoWelcome to the world where impossible is nothing In the studio the real action of the film takes place Pre and post production work is the real charm that does wonders for filmsrdquoRICE RAIN Mehta r demonstrates in the Foley studio how rain sounds are recordedA clip of comic actor Sanjay Verma is played The actorrsquos television and film work is shown to us Karishma says ldquoSince we are in Bollywood we need to create that scene to welcome a celebrityrdquo We had to say lsquoLights Camera Actionrsquo and Sanjay Verma made a filmi entry on the Don title songVerma then mimicked a number of Bollywood iconic characters who we had to guess Next we had to mention the Hindi words for mdash film camera and shooting since we were in Bollywood Our Hindi skills sure got some sharpeningBEHIND THE SCENES The sounds and action on screen are matched by a sound engineerHistoryWe were made to watch a 20minute video on the history of cinema How the camera came into being the Lumiere brothersrsquo films the first Hindi film the first Hindi film with sound the first Hindi film with dialogue were all explainedKarishma and Sanjay complemented each other well as they gave us some important trivia that was not in the film They spoke in Hindi throughout That was a drawback in case of foreign touristsAfter the video we were shown another video on Croma and how Computer Generated Interface CGI is used in movies to make the impossible possible Clips from a number of Hollywood and Bollywood science fiction films were shownWith CGI buildings break and crumble daredevil stunts are done and the action really comes alive with the power of digital enhancement The revelations made the heroic abilities of the Bollywood actors seem not so heroicRoomsWe were lead to the Foley studio where the minute sounds in films are recorded and enhanced Foley effects are sound effects that are added to a film during post production They include sounds such as footsteps clothes rustling crockery clinking paper folding doors opening and slamming punches hitting glass breaking etcSanjay explains ldquoThe walking sounds walking on leaves is all recreated here by the Foley artistes and matched to the film on screen On the sets since everything is made of wood the sound is not real Also the mikes are not very advanced so Foley recording makes it more realistic Phone ringing being picked up knocks on door are all created hererdquoKarishma takes a bowl of rice and butter paper and recreates the sound of the rain for us We then are taken and shown how the sounds are placed on the track by the sound engineer The next room is the dubbing studio where Karishma and Sanjay dub a scene from Devdas Tourists are also allowed to dub a sceneThe singing studio was being used to shoot a television serial starring Manav Gohil so we were unable to have a song recording The organisers allowed us to watch the shooting that was set in an FM studio with Gohil as a Radio Jockey The shooting involved retakes of the same scene and took a long timeAt 115 pm after watching the shooting for a good 30 minutes we were ushered to the end of the tour Karishma and Sanjay bid us goodbye as we ended the lsquoBollywood Dream Tourrsquo which was not that dreamy There was interesting trivia for Bollywood fans but shorter than the two hour slot that was as per the scheduleLocation 2 Guide 4Learning experience 4What is needed More English to be used during explanations better signage outside the venue usage of the full time duration