A sultry actress dancing to melodious tunes while romancing a good looking actor is a formula that never fails to bedazzle Hindi film patrons. The entourage of dancers buzzing around the actors however, may seem merely a blur to most viewers. These faceless ?extras? ? (as they are termed as per Bollywood parlance) or junior artists are an integral part of making a song a success. Yet some of these Indian actors and dancers find it hard to eke out a living due to the lack of work and the rampant displacement by foreign artists.
As if the big screen wasn?t enough, thanks to the Indian Premier League (IPL) a host of foreign dancers hired by cricket teams like Shah Rukh Khan?s Kolkata Knight Riders and Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia?s Kings 11 Chandigarh had a bunch of beautiful girls cheering the teams. Beside films and sports, these actors are soon trickling to the general entertainment channels as well. The recently launched celebrity show ? Oye It?s Friday on NDTV Imagine hosted by director and actor Farhan Akhtar also features foreigners as dancers for song and dance performances.
According to a Hindi film director, ?During the 1980s, it was a norm to place the best dancers in the front row while filming a song. Then the trend changed and became more look-specific, where the better-looking girls occupied the foreground. These days the front rows are taken up by foreign artists, particularly the fair skinned ones and the Indian dancers are positioned in the background.?
Despite escalating production costs, film makers do not mind hiring foreign talent for certain projects. UTV has hired a troupe of 14 dancers for a song from their forthcoming film Yahoo, starring Shahid Kapur. The producers of the film claim that since dance is the unique selling point of the film, having specialised and skilled dancers for the song was essential.
Ram Mirchandani, General Manager, Motion Pictures, UTV thus argues that casting foreigners as dancers is not a trend but more the requirement of a creative process. ?The Indian film industry is graduating into a global village and slowly becoming diverse. Not just the dancers but even skilled foreign technicians like action directors and make up artists are hired as per the need of the film. It is merely a need-based situation when the producers decide to cast foreigners as dancers and it varies from film to film.? The creative head of a production house reveals that many foreign tourists who come to visit the country for a few days are lured by some ad hoc agents appointed by the film makers themselves. ?These agents work on a commission basis and try and attract foreigners by offering them incentives like some easy cash and an accommodation at a luxurious three to four star hotel. However, on an average, extras are paid anything between Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 a day.?
There are many Indian organisations that oppose the use of foreigners as extras. ?Recently while Rakesh Roshan was filming his forthcoming film with a troupe of foreign actors and dancers at Filmcity in Mumbai, one of these local organisations protested the use of these actors and stalled the shoot for several hours,? said a junior actor.
Supran Sen, Secretary General, Film and Television Producers Guild of India says, ?There are a set of rules and regulations for casting foreigners in a film or a TV show. These guidelines have been tailored to make sure that these actors are not exploited and have details about their remuneration.? Most of these actors function with the help of agents or publicists, just like any other Indian junior artist or dancer. But not all foreign actors are aware of these bodies.
Film analyst Vinod Mirani mentions, ?Since most of the films are shot abroad these days, it makes sense for the producers to hire local talent as extras. As far as the cheerleaders at the IPL were concerned, it is a common trend abroad and thus the matches had trained cheerleaders for the purpose in India as well.?
?Why just the junior artists, soon we will experience Sylvester Stallone and Denise Richards appearing in the same frame as Kareena Kapoor and Akshay Kumar. Casting foreigners adds an element of freshness to the film,? avers Mirchandani. Do we hear the audience complaining?