Small Town Stories Making big in Bollywood: Bollywood New Trend

• Quick recap of Bollywood small town stories in previous years
• Why these Bollywood small town stories doing good box office collection
• Challenges faced during shooting these Bollywood small town movies

Capturing the exotic beauty of Indian small towns, Bollywood has come home with more of real life content than dramatic storylines. From shooting in Kashmir (Haider) to Bihar (Gangs of wasseypur) directors are exploring different small towns and villages to bring out the fresh content on screen.

These small towns not only adds to the locations but also give a unique storyline to the Bollywood film-makers.

Small town bollywood stories like Toilet ( Mathura), Bariely Ki Barfi ( Bareily) ,Badrinath ki Dulhania ( Kota) , Gangs of wasseypur (Bihar) ,Ranjhana and Masaan ( Varnasi) and many more made a special place in the hearts of the audiences due its unique content.

"These bollywood small town stories are rich in content. They are as close to the reality as possible. People are easily connected to these stories. These stories are the future of Bollywood" says Mukesh Chbbra, Casting Director.

As these movies portray the life of an ordinary man living in small town, It increases the number of viewers in the middle-class section of the audiences.

"It has to do with bollywood targeting its audiences in small town cities as well youth who come from the small towns to the cities. Inspite of living in corporate English culture, they want to see a movies they can relate to" says Murtaza Ali Khan, Film Critic.

Bollywood is no longer about theatrical dialogue delivery, it is shifting towards dialect driven realism in the movies. From Bundelkhandi in Paan Singh Tomar to Haryanvi in Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Indian cinema is using different dialects from all over the country.

"When we shoot in particular region it is very important to use the dialect of that place but at the same time the dialogues should be universally understood.

The balance is maintained to keep in mind that audience does not get over-bored and enjoy the movie" says Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, director ( Bariely ki barfi and Nil Battey Sannata).

Actors in Bollywood are no longer striving for heroic role but want to do real life characters which is connected to the audience closely.

Directors have become very particular about choosing the actors suitable for role.

"To give realistic touch to the character we find local artists from small towns to train the cast for bringing out the character on screen, also budget of these small town bollywood stories have to kept in mind while casting." Says Mukesh Chabbra , Casting director.

Shooting in the regional beauty comes with lot of challenges.

Taking permissions, cooperation of locals and handling the fan following while shooting " A lot problems are faced during the shooting but the stories found in these small towns cannot be shot in big cities, that magic is can only be created in the small regional places.

People are unaware of shooting formats and It becomes difficult to handle the crowd during shoots" Says Sandeep Singh, co-Producer (Bhoomi).

When it comes to the character portrayal in the story, it is very important that it does not hurt the sentiments of the people from that place.

It should look real and viewers who belong to that particular region should feel proud." Ashwiny says.

These bollywood small town stories are not only winning the hearts of the audience but are also good box office collection. " Movie like Babumoshai Bandookbaaz with shooting budget of around 3 crores have done box office collection of 5 crores in first two days of the release.

So we can see these small town low budget films are not only able to recover their cost but are also able to make reasonable profit out of it." Adds Murtaza.

"Line producers play a major role when shooting small towns as they know the locals and help in taking the permissions.

For many movies we have to take the permission for renting the house during shoot which is arranged by line producers only." Ashwiny adds.

Prepared By Pragya Mittal | Twitter @PragyaMittal05