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Of late Balaji has been the most envied and successful soap churning factory in the country. Even though there are many pretenders to the throne, none has been successful in dethroning the king till now! We want to make things a little easy for the aspirants and decided to put together a common recipe using some very clichd, trusted formulas that go into the making of a Balaji soap.

The K-Title: This is the first and the foremost requirement of making a successful Balaji soap. Never mind if your title runs into several hundred letters but it has to start with K. It€™s also important to register the title before anyone else (read Ekta Kapoor, Karan Johar, Rakesh Roshan etc) steals your lucky name.

Docile bahu: Once the title is finalised, pick up a homely girl from the market. Never mind if she can€™t act, because she doesn€™t need to. All she needs to do is shed gallons of tears in every second scene. After all, she has to play a docile woman who takes all the possible injustices in the world.

Spineless son: Once you have a heroine in place, you also need to get a male counterpart who would be ready to suspect her all the time and will believe everyone in the world but his heroine. He will be involved in making your female lead€™s life miserable by his untimely death or having an extra marital affair.

The Vicious vamp: If there is a hero and a heroine, a vamp is a must. Otherwise how would the scheming, plotting and planning be complete! One, who is ready to apply loud makeup on her face, coloured lenses, artificial eyelashes, stylized bindis, dark kohl and eyeliner, weird hairdos, dark red lipstick etc would be the perfect choice. She doesn€™t even need to act, but must possess a unique style of dialogue delivery and a mind sharper-than-Einstein is a must. .

Weirdo villain: Next in the list of essential ingredients for a daily soap is a very strange looking male villain who would play the right hand to your always-scheming vamp. Sporting the strangest haircuts and worst dressing styles which makes him look more like a cartoon character he would always be free to carry out any of the evil plans of the vamps.

Intrepid writer: Once your key players are in place, you also need someone to engage their time. That€™s where your script writer comes in action. He would be the one, who would think of almost impossible (mostly unrealistic) twists-n-turns in your story. He would also be responsible for killing the characters and also bringing them back to life whenever he gets bored.

Remarriages, love triangles and illegitimate children: These are the most important aspects of a serial making without which, the show would never be complete. Normal love triangles will have three to four persons pursuing a single lead actor. Surprisingly, polygamy can be safely practiced, which gives the required masala (never mind the law of the land). Re-marriages can happen in the family too, like a woman divorcing her husband and later remarrying his younger brother and staying in the same house etc.

Or strangely, your heroine can keep getting married and separating from her number of love interests the umpteenth number of times. And if there are remarriages, can illegitimate children be far behind? Such children can remain scattered across the globe for years. But, at a crucial juncture, they may make a comeback.

Returning from the dead: This is one formula which seems to hit a chord every time. Sometimes the person presumed dead undergoes a plastic surgery and comes back in a totally different persona!

While starry tantrums have always made news, few people are aware that many small screen actors actually bond with each other over their makeup vans and rooms. Some time back, actress Soha Ali Khan had to vacate her makeup room for co-star Shahid Kapur while they were shooting together for a film. But, this has not been the case with most TV stars.

Actress Sai Deodhar who recently shot for Kasauti Zindagi Kay, which is her first serial with Balaji Telefilms, said, "I really don't have any problems with sharing the makeup rooms with any of my colleagues nor do I throw any tantrums. I have also seen the lead stars share the makeup rooms without any qualms."

She adds, "While Balaji looks after its stars well, there have been times when small budgets films can't afford the cost of makeup rooms and we've got to make do with vans." Television artistes like Ronit Roy who plays Mr Bajaj in Kasauti... shares the makeup room with Cezanne Khan who plays Anurag Basu in the serial and his biggest competitor in the plot of the serial. Ram Kapoor who made a comeback with the show Kasamh Se for Zee TV says, "I don't have any problems with sharing the same makeup room. It really doesn't matter with whom I share it. It increases the camaraderie too in a way."

Tina Parakh who stars in Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kasauti Zindagi Kay shares her experience saying, "In Kahani.... generally a group of people sit together and everyone does their makeup. It's like a group activity. When I am shooting for Kasauti, I generally share the room with Shweta Tiwari."

Mrinal Deshraj who plays Shipra Arora in Kahiin To Hoga has a different say on sharing the make room. She says, "Balaji has been the best production house I have ever worked for. It looks after the comforts of the stars and gives them the best facilities. Since Balaji has its own studios, so the porduction house makes it a point to provide us with airconditioned makeup vans where we can even take a nap. We have been sharing the rooms with colleagues and yet the experience is that of comfort, not competition or ego hassles."

In Kahani.... generally a group of people sit together and everyone does their makeup. It's like a group activity. When I am shooting for Kasauti..., I generally share the room with Shweta Tiwari -- Tina Parakh, actress

Television stars who share makeup rooms
* Actress Tina Parakh shares the room with Moonmoon
* Actor Cezanne Khan shares the room with actor Ronit Roy and actress Shubha Verma
* Actress Sai Deodhar shares the Moonmoon
* Actress Shweta Tiwari shares the room with Tina Parakh

Indiantelevision.com Team

(28 July 2006 11:00 pm)

The semi final round was conducted in Mumbai today and saw a 19-member jury scan entries in four categories - comedy, non-scripted entertainment, drama series and children and young people (the latter two being new additions from last year's judging).

India is among a select few countries like Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Qatar and Greece to host the semi final rounds of this event. The jury comprised different representatives from the television fraternity in India including Abhimanyu Singh, Archana Puran Singh, Ashwini Yardi, Asit Modi, Ketki Dave, Mandira Bedi, Monisha Singh, Nachiket Pantvaidya, R D Tailang, Ravi Kiran, Ram Kapoor, Ravina Raj Kohli, Ritu Goel, Sanjeev Sharma, Shristi Arya, Siddharth Kak, Smriti Irani, Supriya Pathak and Suresh Bala.

In essence there seemed to be a consensus among jury members that there was a dearth of Indian content due to sheer lack of awareness among producers and TV channels alike.

Speaking to Indiantelevison.com, Walt Disney Television International (India) executive director production and programming Nachiket Pantvaidya said, "Asian content was quite good as there seems to be a trend in programming particularly around the theme of magic and fantasy. However, Indian content was highly under represented."

Having been on the jury last year as well, Contiloe Films Pvt Ltd CEO Abhimanyu Singh was of the opinion, "Indian entries are at par with the rest. However, there is a greater need to drive the Emmy's forward through better marketing of the brand, to encourage greater participation."

In response to the jury's plea for greater awareness in terms of the procedure to enter the competition, the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences director, Emmy judging, Sandy Clark told this website, "There is a misconception that the Emmy's is only open to US programming. However, there are no restrictions and thus broadcasters, directors, distributors and producers can all enter. We spread awareness through our website, via email and through events like Mipcom and MipTV to encourage entries from across the globe."

Hopefully this year's win, combined with word-of-mouth will provide an impetus to more Indian producers and TV channels to make a bigger entry next year. Speaking about B.A.G. Films' achievement, Indiantelevision.com CEO and International Emmy Semi Final host Anil Wanvari said, "Siddhant making it to the final speaks volumes for Indian content and this will hopefully facilitate greater participation next year."

The entries in the remaining shortlisted for the final round are as follows:

Comedy - War of the In Laws, TV Broadcasters Ltd, Hong Kong, China

Non-Scripted Entertainment - 1. Wisholang (My Wish) - Papawad (Forgiveness), GM Networks, Philippines
2. Viking Family Special, Fuji Network Corp, Japan

Children and Young People - 1. My Perfect Partner, Media Corp, Singapore

2. Advengers, TV Asahi Corp, Japan

Drama - 1. Home Affairs, Penguin Films, South Africa
2. Siddhant B.A.G Films, India

https://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k6/july/july339. htm

Spun out of a 'reasonable' budget, Purohit expects the strategy to click, as the channel's restructuring of 'weekday programming' has been a success with audiences. The Singhs' first offering, Chura Ke Dil Mera, is also their first foray into feature film making. Makers of Banegi Apni Baat, Just Mohabbat and Dil Se Dosti for Zee, the Singhs say they decided on the feature film format as they had decided to do something very unusual and different, because almost every genre of programming has been done on television.

While most channels, wary of venturing into fresh programming prior to the World Cup, have still gone ahead and announced new daily serials, Zee too is likely to launch a couple of new year long dailies. Purohit however is loath to divulge details at this stage.

Chura Ke Dil Mera is a story of a journalist, played by Ram Kapoor and a famous socialite(Divya Datta) who is the bahu of a business family. They meet at a function and the journalist who had never had a relationship before develops an obsession for her. But as the obsession grows and the relationship gets passionate, strange and unexpected things start happening, leading to a totally unexpected climax. It deals with perfectly normal characters in a realistic milieu but things go awry and there is no point of return."