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What is Bollywood
Bollywood is the familiar phrase generally used for the Indian Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, one of the most expensive city in India. The phrase is some time wrongly used to refer to the whole Indian cinema industry but that is not true; it is the only a part of the total Indian film industry, the whole Indian film industry includes other production centers producing films in regional languages.
Bollywood is a trendy name for the Hindi-language film industry in India. The name is the combination of Bombay, the previous name of the film city Mumbai, where the Indian Hindi film industry is based and Hollywood, the center of cinema in the USA.
Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest centers of film production in all over the world. Bollywood it is also considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced every year and also the number of tickets sold per year.
The Bollywood film industry market is massive. It is the leading film market in the world in terms of both films released per year and tickets sold. In Boolywood on an average more than four billion tickets sold each year. In terms of financial income Bollywood is far behind from Hollywood.
At one time, Bollywood films often had a lower budget, production quality and lack of talent than their Hollywood counterparts. But now Bollywood has improved its quality to keep up. Although most modern films made in India still are produced for a much lower cost than Hollywood films, the gap in production quality has been reduced dramatically.
Bollywood films are usually based on music and dancing. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. Bollywood viewers wants full return for their money; they want melodies songs and well performed dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil thrills,The plots are often melodramatic. They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.
While most actors, especially today, are excellent dancers, few are also singers. Songs are generally pre-recorded by professional playback singers with actors lip-synching the words, often while dancing.
Playback singers like Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chowhan, Sherea Ghosal, Atif Aslam are importantly featured in the opening credits and have their own fans who will go to an otherwise lackluster movie just to hear their favorites. The composers of film music, known as music directors, are also well-known like Anu Malik, Shankar Mahadeban, Pritam. Their songs can influence the success of a film.
In Bollywood people from all areas of India are engaged. It attracts many talented actors and actresses, all hoping for a success in the industry. Models and beauty contestants, television actors, theatre actors and even common people come to Mumbai with the hope and dream of becoming a super star actor or actress.
Popularity of the stars can climb and drop rapidly, based on single movies. Very few people become super star icons, who are untouched by success or failure of their movies, like Amitabh Bachchan, Sahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan, Aishwria Rai. Producer and Directors compete to hire the most popular and successful actors/actress of the day, who are supposed to guarantee the success of a movie. Hence stars make the most of their fame, once they become popular, by making several movies simultaneously
In 1953 Indian screen magazine Filmfare started the first Filmfare Awards. Filmfare Magazine readers submit their votes and the awards are presented at a glamorous, star-studded ceremony. Other companies like Stardust magazine, Zee TV etc later entered the award business. Some of the other popular awards are: Stardust awards, IIFA Awards, Zee Cine Awards, Star Screen Awards
Bollywood budgets are usually lower than Hollywood movies. After 1990s Sets, costumes, special effects, and cinematography quality has improved to world class. Now a days maximum sequences are shot overseas have proved a real box office draw, so Mumbai film crews are increasingly traveling, filming in Australia, UK, Europe and elsewhere.
Funding for making Bollywood films mainly comes from private companies and some big studios. Indian banks were not allowed to lend money to film productions, but this ban has been relaxed recently. Some of the finance also comes from illegal sources. Mumbai mafia’s have produced films, patronized actors/ actress, and used their power to get their way in cinematic deals. Bollywood's major crisis is piracy - people duplicate the films and also sell them or show them to other for free.