Summary of the lesson 'Project Tiger'

 

Project Tiger (Satyajit Ray)  Satyajith Ray says that no one can beat Hollywood in making films with animals. Ray remembers some films he saw in his childhood days - films with an Alsatian dog called Rin-tin-tin and a Collie dog called Lassie. These dogs were famous animal stars and their acting was more impressive than a human’s. The money they earned was no less than what a real film-star got. He realized that these animal actors were treated very respectfully in Hollywood. It is customary for the actors to be present in the studio when the lights are arranged. And in the case of very famous stars, this job is done by their stand-ins.  Twenty years ago when he saw a film shooting in Disney Studio, he also realized that these animal actors had stand-ins just like the human superstars had. In Hollywood, even films with trained ravens have been made possible – for example, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film ‘Birds’ hundreds of trained ravens and other birds were used.  Though it is not easy to find trained animals in our country, many films have been made with trained elephants, dogs and horses in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Making a film with a tiger is not an easy task, and Ray had to deal with such a problem when he shot his film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne.  In the film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, there is a scene in which the heroes Goopy and Bagha meet a tiger in a forest and freeze in fright. To shoot this scene, Ray wanted to get a trained tiger. He got a trained tiger with its trainer Mr. Thorat from the Bharat Circus Company. They planned to shoot the scene in a bamboo grove in a village called Notun Gram, and Mr. Thorat and his team reached there with two tigers. They put a tiger-skin collar around the tiger’s neck and tied one end of a thin-but-strong wire to this collar and the other end to an iron rod fixed to the ground. Mr. Thorath opened the cage and called out to the tiger. The tiger violently jumped out of the cage and charged at the audience.  Everyone was shocked at the unexpected behaviour of the tiger. Even the trainer Mr. Thorat could not bring it under control, but it calmed down after a while. They took the required shots, but later found that the camera had failed to work, and the shots were too dark. They had to take all the shots again and they reached another location in Boral village. Here also the tiger violently charged at the audience, but soon became calm. Ray and his men took all the required shots. This time the camera also worked well, and all the shots were perfect!