All About Kollywood Part 1

All About Kollywood Part 1
Kollywood (Tamil : கோலிவுட் ) is the name of the popular Tamil Film Industry cinema based in Chennai, India. The name is the portmanteau of Kodambakkam, the area in Chennai (formerly Madras), where Kollywood films were largely produced. Presently, there is a film city at tharamani,chennai where production takes place. Tamil language movies are also filmed in Sri Lanka.Silent movies were produced in Kollywood since 1916 and the era of talkies dawned in 1931. By the end of the 1930s, the industry was booming to the extent that the State of Madras legislature passed the pioneering Entertainment Tax Act 1939 with little opposition.Film industry in Nepal is also called Kollywood from its capital's name Kathmandu.DistributionTamil films have one of the widest overseas distribution along with Telugu and Hindi films. They have enjoyed consistent popularity among Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. Tamil films have recently become popular in Japan (Rajinikanth's Muthu, for example, screened for a record period), South Africa, Canada, and the UK. Many movies such as Chandramukhi and Anniyan were also simultaneously released in the USA. Sivaji: The Boss, which had released recently has also been touted as a record-breaking film for its high-budget, large opening, and reception worldwide. It also cracked into the UK's Top 10 weekend box opening movies becoming the first ever Indian movie to do so. It is also the most expensive Indian movie produced so far, largely due to the 25 Crore salary paid to Rajnikanth.Kamala Hassan's Dasavatharam is the highest budget(75 Crores) in the Indian cinema history in which Kamal acted in 10 different roles which was also the first time in world cinema.Tamil films enjoy significant patronage in the neighbouring southern States like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh too. In Kerala and Karnataka the films are directly released in Tamil but in Andhra Pradesh they are generally dubbed into Telugu. There is a fair amount of dispersion amongst the Indian film industries. Many successful Tamil films have been remade by the Hindi and Telugu film industries. Kollywood has also remade a fair number of Hindi-, Telugu-, Malayalam-, and other-language films. It is estimated by the Manorama Yearbook 2000 (a popular almanac) that over 5,000 Tamil films were produced in the 20th century. For a complete list of Tamil films, see the List of Tamil-Language Films. Tamil films have also been dubbed into other languages, thus reaching a much wider audience. Examples of those dubbed into Hindi include such hits as Minsaara Kanavu, Roja and Bombay. Anniyan, a recent Tamil film became the first Indian film to be dubbed into French. See popular Tamil films.There has been a growing presence of English in dialogue and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see movies that feature dialogue studded with English words and phrases, or even whole sentences. Some movies are also simultaneously made in two or three languages (either using subtitles or several soundtracks). Quite often, Tamil movies feature Madras Tamil, a colloquial version of Tamil spoken in Chennai. Madras being the old name of Chennai.HistoryA visiting European exhibitor first screened (date unknown) a selection of silent short films at the Victoria Public Hall in Madras. The films all featured non-fictional subjects; they were mostly photographed records of day-to-day events.In Madras (now known as Chennai), the Electric Theatre was established for the screening of silent films. It was a favourite haunt of the British community in Madras. The theatre was shut down after a few years. This building is now part of the Post Office complex in Anna Salai. A Mr. Cohen built Lyric Theatre in the Mount Road area (now Anna Salai).This venue boasted a variety of events, including plays in English, Western classical music concerts, and ballroom dances. Silent films were also screened as an additional attraction. Samikannu Vincent, an employee of the South Indian Railways in Trichy, purchased a film projector and silent films from the Frenchman Du Pont and set up a business as film exhibitor. He erected tents for screening films. His tent cinema became popular and he travelled all over the state with his mobile unit. In later years, he produced talkies and also built a cinema in Coimbatore.To celebrate the event of King George V's visit in 1909, a grand exhibition was organised in Madras. Its major attraction was the screening of short films accompanied by sound. A British company imported a Crone megaphone, made up of a film projector to which a gramophone with a disc containing prerecorded sound was linked, and both were run in unison, producing picture and sound simultaneously. However, there was no synched dialogue. Raghupathy Venkiah Naidu, a successful photographer, took over the equipment after the exhibition and set up a tent cinema near the Madras High Court. R. Venkiah, flush with funds, built in 1912 a permanent cinema in the Mount Road area named Gaiety. It was the first in Madras to screen films on a full-time basis. This theatre is still functioning, although under different ownership.In tent cinemas, there were usually three classes of tickets: the floor, bench and, chair. The floor-ticket purchaser sat on sand to watch the movie, but he enjoyed certain advantages that other patrons did not. He could sit as he pleased, or he could turn over and take a short nap when the narrative was particularly dull and roll back again when the action was again to his liking—luxuries in which the upper class could never indulge.Early Movie StudiosIn early days during 20's, Tamil Movies (silent Movies)were shot at make shift location in and around Chennai,and for technical processing they were sent to Pune or Calcutta.Later some movies featuring MKT were shot at Pune and Calcutta. In the 30's AVM setup their makeshift studio in the town of Karaikudi, and in the same decade big full fledged Movie studio's were built in Salem (Modern Theatres Studio) and Coimbatore (Central Studios, Neptune, and Pakshiraja).By mid 40's Chennai became the hub of Studio activity with two more movie Studios built in Chennai, Vijaya Vauhini Studios and Gemini Studios.Later AVM Studios shifted their operations to Chennai.Thus the undivided Madras Presidency being the Capital to most of South India,Chennai became the center for Tamil and notable Telugu movies. Also most of the pre-independence era drama and stage actors joining movie industry from 40's Chennai became the hub for South Indian Language Cinema.SuperstarsInitially, Kollywood was dominated by M.K. Thyagaraja Bagavadhar and P. U. Chinnappa in 1930's and 1940's. After in the 1950s till late 1970s by M. G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan. The 1980s were dominated by Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth. By the 1990s there were many stars in the industry. However, Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth still dominated the decade and brought Kollywood to a new level. The former starred quality films under his production while the latter raised the bar in commercial and family entertainers and became the highest paid actor in the India.The top actresses were Savithri, Banumathi, Padmini, Saroja Devi and K.R.Vijaya till 1960s. Jayalalitha and Lakshmi dominated in mid 1960s.Then another set of actresses such as Sri Devi, Hemamalini, Radhika and Sri Priya dominated the 1970s.Among all Sri Devi was called as the Lady super star.The 1980s were dominated by Ambhika, Radha, Revathy, Nadhiya and Amala.During the 90s, the present generation of young superstars, Joseph Vijay and Ajith Kumar, had debuted. Today along with veterans Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth, Joseph Vijay, Ajith Kumar, Vikram and Surya Sivakumar are prominent leading stars who guarantee a good box office opening and appear in most high-budget feature films.The early 1990s were dominated by actresses Kushboo, Gowthami, Meena and Roja.The late 1990s were dominated by Rambha, Devayani and Simran Bagga.Simran Bagga was called as the "Queen of kollywood" and she remained as the "Lady Super Star" from 1998 till 2004 when she got married.She became the Highest paid south Indian actress by getting 75 lakhs for her lat movie New in 2004.Then the leading actresses were Jyothika, Sneha, Trisha, Asin and Nayanthara.Jyothika was well appreciated for her last film Mozhi.Jyothika got married and left the industry in 2007.The present lead actresses are Trisha and Nayanthara.These stars have exclusive fanclubs that often resort to passionate display of support. Distributors of films of the stars are able to arrange financing of film-in-progress from banks and exhibitors without much difficulty.Some of these actors like Rajinikanth, are politically influential due to their loyal fan bases.