Evolutions In The Indian Art & Cinema Landscape

Art & Investment

Talking about upcoming trends in the Indian art market and the relationship between art and investment, Siddanth Shetty, Chief Administrative Officer, AstaGuru Auction House said, “Spending is increasing, in 2023, we saw 164 records being broken for the prices of Indian art. Demand is increasing as people understand and appreciate art. In terms of the future, there’s a lot of legacy building happening with a lot of HNI families. People now have easier access to art, there is also support from the government pushing towards art and culture. There is a foundation being created right now for a better future.”

Shetty adds that during the pandemic, the Indian art market grew by 23 per cent. In 2019 the Indian art market was worth Rs 500 crore, by 2024, the market has grown to Rs 1200 crore.

Sound Design & Cinematic Experience

Talking about changes in the Indian sound design landscape, Bishwadeep Chatterjee (National Film Award Winner), Indian Film Sound Designer and Sound Editor explained, “Principally, Indian cinema has evolved at par with the West because of our colonial background. We have taken it in a different direction because of our history like theatre, nautanki and more. We have slowly developed our own language of cinema. Sound is 50 per cent of the cinema experience.”

Chatterjee traced the history of sound design in Indian cinema from silent films to the first Indian film with sound and from producing sound on a single track to the Dolby Atmos experience we get in today’s cinema productions.

Creating Winning Characters

Talking about creating characters, Rahul Vohra, Actor and Director asserted, “Grasping the essence of the emotions that your character is feeling is essential. I research my character by observing life, I note little subtleties like someone’s particular way of sitting or a unique twitch. Initially, you don’t know where you’re going to use these things but it’s handy when the time comes.”

Explaining the difference between a commercial film and theatre, Vohra said that cinema is a director’s medium and an actor is one of the multiple elements that goes into it. Film actors have to follow the director’s instructions to a tee as many shots are taken with post-production in mind. He added that theatre is entirely an actor’s medium. Even though a director is involved in conceptualising a performance, when the play is being performed, the only one in control is the actor on stage.

These industry stalwarts converged at the 5^th edition of the BW Future of Design Summit & Awards 2024.

Pratyaksh Dutta

BW Reporters The author is a correspondent at BW Businessworld. He closely looks after the vertical of Everything Experiential and writes on experiential marketing.