PADMAVATI TO PADMAAVAT: A Designer’s Touch

INDIAN FILM INDUSTRY popularly known to us a Bollywood is a diverse cluster of entertainment. Where rest of the world categorizes their movies generally into categories of Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi, Action and such, on the other hand, Bollywood’s packs the punch of everything in their movies. The elements of Indian movies are so sundry yet united when finally they are made public for viewing and enjoying them. Such diversity puts immense pressure upon the promotional part of such movies because they decide the market placement and sustainability on the Box-Office to a huge extent, maximum to be accurate. MOVIE TITLE DESIGNS are one of those miniature looking elements of movie making which seems irrelevant or casual but is the opposite of it when it comes to impact over the prospective market positioning of the upcoming movie. The individual letters are the building blocks of a movie title and the title of the movie, its design overall depicts the theme of the movie. It speaks about the market, the audience the movie appeals to, it tells us about what the movie is going to be and its quality, the visual impact of a movie title, tells us about how much to expect from the movie and its unit. Movie Title Designs are not only significant to the movie’s success in today’s era, but it applies to from when the movie industry came into being. The design of the title of the movie tells us about the character, the content, the effort, the audience appeal of the movie. Be it Mughal-E-Azam or Sholay, Rockstar or Love Aaj Kal, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, all their title designs are the mirror for every single movie ever. While Mughal-E-Azam title design displayed royalty and period drama, Sholay seemed like the masala movie packed with action and dialogues.



The examples are many and all substantial, such as Lagaan depicting period drama, Rockstar depicted presence of music inclusive of aggression through the guitar and sharp designs of the title, Hindi Medium for the condition of Hindi in our society these days, Hum Saath Saath Hai for family drama, Taare Zameen Par for Dyslexia (something about reading and writing problem of a child), Dabang for the Robinhood Impact, and My Name is Khan for something to do with religion as it kept KHAN in a different color on the title, and so on.
 

When I back then saw the title of the movie “7 Khoon Maaf”, I knew it from the blood red brushed design of the “7” that this one was going to be a graphic movie with a lot of murder elements in it.
 

So basically, the theme and mood of the movie is conveyed by the Title of the motion picture. While the director directs the movie, the title designer sorts out how the movie title in its tiny appearance should tell it all about the movie in its one visual. Personally I feel, there must be a category for this in the Movie Awards because this one is one of the most substantial part of movie making, especially, in the modern era where entertainment is not taken and accepted for granted. It has to be top notch, fulfilling all expectations of the audience or the box office waves you goodbye in a week or two weeks maximum. Now let’s come to what’s hot on the plate today: the motion picture- PADMAAVAT. The movie was drawn into the controversy for alleged wrongful depiction of history of the Rajput Queen: Rani Padmini. Though it has been claimed that the story of Rani Padmini is a fictional character, but somehow it outraged a greater section of Rajasthan and which resulted in the changing of the title of the movie to “PADMAAVAT” from “PADMAVATI”. Away from the controversy, we are here to bring light upon the Title design of the movie, which again shows the skill of the title designer regarding how he is clever enough to keep the elements of the previous title intact in the new revised one. In the previous title, you could see the symbol of lotus over the letter “I” placed as the dot of letter “I” has been cleverly kept intact upon the letter “T” of the newer one, as a result of which the letter “T” of the newer one symbolizing both “T” & “I”. So the designer in his wits tells how the motion picture has all the previous elements intact, even the previous title of the movie in the newer one and that the soul of the movie is yet not lost even after the storm it has been through and still going through, as the news of disturbances flowing in this morning too. This article in no way intends to stir any controversy regarding the title design change of the motion picture, rather wants to throw light upon the big, small and miniature details handled and kept in mind by the designer so that it conveys the theme of the motion picture in its best possible way.
 
This article was in the view of me. Any views that you have please to share with us by leaving in the comment section below, will be highly appreciate.