Making a movie requires several different ingredients. First is an exciting and engaging plot.  The plot requires suitable and inspiring locations to set the story in. The movie requires talented cast and crew, accurate costumes, and expert direction. All these ingredients need credible, well-crafted, strong characters that pulls audience to the cinema halls. The characters in the plot make a hit or a flop movie. 

To develop a character, the director must identify and typecast it by creating a profile; identify backstory (created for a fictional character), struggles, motivation, and goals; and use their personal traits and moral compass to determine the character’s apparent path in a movie/drama/ series etc.

For the super hit Dollars Trilogy directed by Italian director Serigo Leone who casted Clint Eastwood in all the three movies “A fistful of dollars” 1964, “For a few dollars more” 1965 and “The Good, the bad and the ugly” 1966. In all three movies Eastwood played the man with no name because his character was not given any name. In the movie “A fistful of dollars” he had only two facial expressions: with hat without hat. Leone said more than a man he needed a mask. From economic perspective, he had to shell out merely 15,000 dollars to Eastwood. The character of Eastwood had to carry a cigar in his mouth for major part of the movie. Eastwood hated cigar as he hated tobacco which gave his face the signature frown. Added to this was the scorching heat of the sunny Italian summer which made Eastwood perpetually squint, but this is how a legend was born.  In Serigo’s dollars trilogy Clint Eastwood is considered one of the most charming and memorable characters. The important point to note is that Eastwood wasn’t a hero in these movies.

While writing the plot of a movie, the writer needs to create well-rounded, relatable, and interesting characters. They grow and evolve throughout the story, being shaped by their experiences as they go along.

Nobody can forget the character of Gabbar Singh portrayed by Amjad Khan in the blockbuster movie Sholay (1975). Writers Salim-Javed modelled Gabbar Singh on a real-life dacoit Gabbar Singh Gujjar who used to frighten the villages around Gwalior in the 1950s. Any policeman captured by Gujjar had his ears, and nose cut off, and was released as a warning to other policemen. 

It seems Amjad Khan read ‘Abhishapth Chambal’, a book on Chambal dacoits written by Taroon Kumar Bhaduri, actress Jaya Bhaduri’s father.  Every single department of cinema – casting, characterization, screenplay, dialogue, cinematography, music, songs, sound design, art direction, editing, location, speech patterns and language, and even costumes were worked out in masterly detail. The film is so mesmerizing, made especially attractive because of Gabbar Singh, the most outstanding and memorable villain in the history of Indian cinema, that not many paid attentions to the costume design.

A lot of research had gone into costume design of Gabbar Singh. Costume design is not just about the clothes. In film, it has both a narrative and a visual requirement. Designers serve the script and the director by creating authentic characters and by using colour, texture, and outline to provide balance within the composition of the frame. The costume designer must first know the character for preparation of the costume.

So, Gabbar’s costume comprised of this olive-green safari suit, a metallic taveez(talisman) strung on a black thread across his neck, a cartridge-lined belt he sways this way and that to threaten his men, and a small cloth bag of khaini he chews from time to time and spits out randomly. His boots are smart too but covered with a layer of dust. His curly hair is unkempt, and he shaves rarely. There is a constant ugly glare in his roving eyes matched with an evil grin. The script very intelligently does not give him a back story as to why he is so destructive and ruthless. And this is what makes him mesmerise to the audience. He represented pure, undiluted evil in human form. He also wields a gun for easy gunning down of his “coward” men. The ruthless Gabbar was given dialogues which are famous even today. The best example can be “Pachaas Pachaas koso dur jab koi baccha rota hai, to uski maa usse kehti hai ki beta so ja nahi to Gabbar aa jaayega!” The legacy of Gabbar is so colossal, that people even today refer to his dialogues subconsciously. Be it a tough test, and the first thing which comes to our mind is “Tera kya hoga, Kaalia?” “Jo dar gaya, who mar gaya”.

Characters (the actors) need to work on three main areas: preparation, physicality, and Imagination. Its mind, body, and spirit. Preparation includes reading the script and doing research like watching the living characters around with shades of the character the actor is going to play. Physicality means quality and characteristics of a person. If the character is from a different time, or a different culture than the actor needs to study history, the culture, the mannerisms, and the language of that time.  The actor must get into the skin of a character to make it look” REAL.” The character’s backstory matters. The backstory is everything that has happened to a character before the novel begins. 

Directors possess a unique ability to translate a script into a captivating visual and auditory experience that resonates with audiences. They develop a distinct creative vision, encompassing the film’s mood, tone, visual style, and storytelling approach.

The world of cinema has given many unforgettable characters till date.

Language is most important for communication. It is used to inform others, to ask them to do certain things and to express feelings, moods, ideas, information, experiences etc. Language undoubtedly has a very important social purpose because it is mainly used for linguistic communication.

It’s worth noting that Chinese is the single most spoken language in the world today with around 1.2 billion people who consider it their first language. The written origins of the language have been traced back to 1250 BC in the late Shang dynasty. Along with Tamil, Chinese is one of the oldest surviving languages in the world.

The languages of India are divided into various language families, of which the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages are the most widely spoken. Indo-Aryan language is a combination with Persian, Arabic, and Turkic elements in its vocabulary, with the grammar of the local dialects. They are Assamese, Sindhi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi and Punjabi. The two largest languages that formed from Apabhraṃśa which in Sanskrit literally mean “corrupt” or “non-grammatical language”, that which deviates from the norm of Sanskrit grammar. Apabhraṃśa literature is a valuable source for the history of North India for the period spanning the 12th to 16th centuries. They are Bengali and Hindustani. On the other hand Dravidian languages are the four most commonly spoken languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. All four are official state languages of India, and Telugu, the most commonly spoken of all the Dravidian languages, is the third most common language spoken in India.

While most countries in the world have one national language, India has a different language for each of its 28 states. Each State has its Own Language

Hindi is recognised as an official language and all Union Government Records are written in Hindi and English. Other State Governments have records written in the State’s official language and English.

However, all Indian languages are phonetic. That means you can pronounce any word just by seeing it written. In every major Indian language, each syllable has a unique representation in script. It is truly “What-you-see-is-what-you-get” for the Indian language.

What’s more, many Indian languages share the same script (the written alphabet). For example, Sanskrit and Hindi are written in the same script – Devanagiri – but are still very different. Most of the Indian languages have their own script and are spoken in the respective states along with English.

Most Languages in India Follow the WYSIWYG Premise WYSIWYG implies a user interface that allows the user to view something very similar to the end result; while the document is being created. In general, WYSIWYG implies the ability to directly manipulate the layout of a document, without having to type or remember names of layout commands. The actual meaning depends on the user’s perspective, WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. WYSIWYG is a way of designing electronic documents so that content such as text and graphics is displayed on screen during editing in a way that corresponds exactly to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product.

Hindi is spoken as a mother tongue by about 40.22 percent of the population, mainly in the area known as the Hindi belt comprising Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.  It is the official language of the Indian Union, of the four states mentioned above, and of two other states namely, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

Tamil (5000 years old) – Oldest Living Language in India. Part of the Dravidian family, which comprises of some native southern and eastern Indian languages, Tamil is the most widely spoken language in the state of Tamil Nadu and is also one of the recognized national languages of India. Its spoken by at least 65 million people.

Assamese is the state language of Assam and is spoken by nearly 60 percent of the State’s population.  The origin of this language dates back to the 13th century.

Bengali is spoken by nearly 200 million people in the world – in Bangladesh and in West Bengal. It developed as a language in the 13th century and is the official state language of the eastern state of West Bengal.

Gujarati is the state language of Gujarat and is spoken by 70 percent of the State’s population.  It is Indic in origin and branched out from the Indo-European group of languages.

Kannada is the State language of Karnataka and is spoken by 65 percent of the State’s population.

Kashmiri is a language written in both Persio-Arabic and Devanagari scrip and is spoken by 55 percent of the population of Jammu and Kashmir.

Konkani, principally based on classical Sanskrit, belongs to the south-western branch of Indo-Aryan languages.  It is spoken in the Konkan region covering Goa and parts of the coastal regions of Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. It is the official language of Goa, the smallest state in India.

Malayalam is a Dravidian language, spoken by the people of Kerala and Lashadweep.  It is an ancient language and is thousands of years old.

Marathi is an Indic language dating back to the 13th century.  It is the official language of the western state of Maharashtra.

Oriya, the state language of Orissa is spoken by nearly 87 percent of its population.

Punjabi is an Indic language and is spoken in the state of Punjab.  Although based on the Devanagari script, it is written in a 16th century script called Gurumukhi, created by the Sikh Guru Angad in the Indian state of Punjab and in Shahmukhi, a Persio-Arabic script in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

On top of that, there are dialects that change in every region. So, if you are in, let’s say Karnataka, a state in the southern part of India where the primary language is Kannada, you will see a variation of this language in North and South Karnataka.

What’s more, in regions close to the borders of particular states, there are completely unique languages or dialects, influenced by neighbouring states. That means, you will hear people speak a totally different language called Konkani on the border of Karnataka and Maharashtra. Note that the primary language of Karnataka is Kannada and that of Maharashtra is Marathi.

Rajasthani refers to a group of Indo-Aryan languages and dialects spoken primarily in the state of Rajasthan and adjacent areas of Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh in India. 

Bhojpuri is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in northern-eastern India and the Terai region of Nepal. It is chiefly spoken in western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Sociolinguistically, Bhojpuri is considered one of several Hindi dialects. 

Sindhi is spoken by a great number of people in the North-west frontier of the Indian sub-continent comprising parts of India and Pakistan.  In Pakistan, the language is written in the Persio-Arabic script, while in India it uses the Devanagari script.

Telugu is also a Dravidian language and is the spoken by the people of Andhra Pradesh.

Urdu is the state Language of Jammu and Kashmir and it evolved with Hindi in the capital of India, Delhi.  Urdu is the language adopted by the majority of the Muslims in India.  Urdu is written in the Persio-Arabic script and contains many words from the Persian language.

Sanskrit is older than Prakrit languages. However, both are Indo-Aryan languages that co-existed for several centuries. Sanskrit is not the refinement of Prakrit languages as mistakenly believed by some. It is the refined and codified version of archaic Vedic language. It’s worth noting that when groups evolved at a habitat certainly there was some kind of communication perhaps Sanskrit and Tamil dominated from the History of India since 3000 BC.