Friday November 14, 2008
Dance of death
By SHAMALA VELU
Shuffle in the streets leads to a dancer’s death, in FRONTPAGE.
AS long as there’s great news, there will be good stories. That’s how award-winning director/producer and screenwriter Kabir Bhatia views the current investigative series FRONTPAGE, currently aired on Ntv7.
Bhatia along with his team of writers decided to come up with the episode, Shufflers, after reading about issues concerning teenagers in the newspapers. This episode, he says, is one of the more interesting ones as it highlights numerous social issues.
“It’s the characters and the visuals that make the story very interesting. This is really an interesting episode because the focus is around young people. It’s not something that we imagined but it’s a story that we read about in the newspapers sometime in May this year. That’s how the stories in FRONTPAGE come together,” he explained, confirming thatthe series is grounded in reality.
This episode was inspired by a report in the newspapers about a new dance style for teenagers.
The auditions for this episode attracted many young people with impressive dancing skills and viewers will see that it consists of mostly 16 to 17-year-olds who have a great passion for the artform.
Shufflers starts off with a dance craze that takes teenagers in
The lead dancer, Shark, is killed and initial investigations point towards his rocker enemies. The plot thickens when it turns out to be someone else instead.
Radin Ahmad Adrian, 16, who plays Shark in the episode, says what he likes about this episode is the unexpected ending.
“It starts off with the murder and as the investigation wears on, there are lots of surprises,” he said.
“I had a great time. All of us did, because he just let us be ourselves and do what we like most – dancing!” he said over the phone.
Bhatia says it was a challenge working with amateurs as well. “I don’t expect much from them. The challenge of working with youngsters and newcomers is that they do not know what to expect.”
Some, he said, wanted to leave in the afternoon, thinking they were done for the day.
“I had to tell them that this is not how it works during a shoot,” he smiled. “They do not understand the long hours we put in.”
There were close to 30 young people in this episode, jazzing up the set with their vibrant dance styles. It’s also interesting to note the colourful street dance scenes.
“I wanted these young people to be themselves. They have to be relaxed in order to do their best,” he said.
FRONTPAGE is shown on Ntv7 on Sundays at 10pm.
Woohoo... caya lar Eddie...
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