Cinema is by far the most common and cheapest means of entertainment in cities in India. The maximum we Indians can look to cinema is as an exposition of art. In a country like ours, where most people are illiterate and so poor that they can ill afford any other recreation, Cinema has taken its toll.

Poor, hard pressed and illiterate people find that the cinema is the only means by which they can break the monotony and drudgery or their routine mundane lives.

The village or urban labour class are casual about pictures because they do not have the time, the means or occasion to dabble with any of the luxuries they see on the cinema screen. However, it is the urban lower class and small children of all classes who treat movies as something more than mere entertainers. Thus we see that the urban population is mostly influenced by the cinema.

The influence of cinema can not be underestimated for, cinema is a visual aid to learning. So what is seen on the cinema screen is automatically assimilated by those who see the picture. Now, what is to be measured is the depth and amount of influence on different individuals. As we all know the most impressionable people are the illiterates and the young minds so, when picture are seen by the masses, the greatest and deepest influence is on the young and illiterate, while all other categories only get their share of entertainment and forget about it all. The educated may view the cinema as an art, besides it being entertainment but the influence on the illiterate and children is seen in their trying to copy or imitate what they see. Besides, these categories also start visualising the screen to be a picture of real life which leads them to disappointment and frustration.

The cinema being a very important visual aid can play a vital role in educating the masses. If pictures are based on realities and deal with society evils and the like, the impressionable minds will understand life and society better, and the cinema will be playing its role. The cinema can play a positive educative role in the spheres of photography, art, dancing and singing and this would be a positive contribution of cinema to the teaching of all these fine arts.

What we said in the previous paragraphs is just what could be achieved by the cinema as its influence is tremendous. However, at least in India the influence is just the opposite Cinema is not at all educative in its role instead, it is only influencing impressionable minds in the negative. That would go to mean that, the quality of our cinema is very low. The impressionable minds are, as expected, learning what they see in the cinema. They behave as they see, they dress as they see and act as they see. So, the influence is undoubtedly full and complete but absolutely negative. This has to be because, the young and the illiterate learn and ape all of what they see as, they do not possess the capacity to clean the hay from the chaff.

Another very dampening effect of the cinema to day is in causing depressions, frustrations and then suicides. People who see that life is all roses as depicted ok the screen, life is all glamour and money, expect the same from life for themselves. When this is mot to be, they are sadly disappointed with what life has to offer them in reality.

Cinema can be of great utility and influence if the cinemas made are educative and provide clean entertainment, clean songs and dances of some standard. However, in our country, like all other things, cinema has also become an industry highly commercialised each picture produced must be a commercial hit no matter what it may all be about. The producers and directors get together to produce picture to earn a fortune and not to provide quality education or entertainment for people. This is why to day the picture we see are mostly those which cater to the lower classes if people, and children, as, only they can be frivolous and appreciate as fun, meaningless gestures and overtures.

Thus, the influence of cinema has got to be tremendous and it is being so. We are getting the return of our cinemas in all our crimes and violence and sex. So it is playing its role of teaching no doubt but what, is just nobody’s business. If the cinema has to play the role it is meant to play, the quality of cinema must improve no matter ever if quantity is not retained. It is not important to know how much we learn, it is all important to know what all we learn, as the influence of cinema is great and irreparable.

Hindi cinema has evolved itself from the conventional type to a highly innovative cinema. The kind of movies you used to see five years ago, have started diminishing and you will find more audience oriented movies now. Movies which are coming these days, try to reflect the real side even if it is the dark side of life.

Movies are gearing up to match expectations and some are even surpassing those expectations. Some movies like “Wednesday”, “The Black Friday” and “New York” were above expectations and created a lot of buzz at Hindi cinema box office.

Bollywood is catching up with Hollywood trends very fast. They have even started hiring international artist for the movie. You have already seen Sylvester Stallone and Kylie Minogue dancing for Bollywood in recent movies. You may even find some bigger stars in coming movies.

Indian movies are getting popular and Indian stars are making a tremendous rapport in Hollywood. Some movies are claiming hit because of foreign audience only. With luck smiling on Hollywood, new fans are looking up for Indian stars across borders.

Bollywood also has started pouring in more money into movies. Movies budgeting to
5-6 billions are making their way very frequently in a year or so. As film makers are putting so much of money into this business, marketing has gone one more step ahead. You will find stars doing photo sessions together just before the film unveils. You can easily catch them on some TV shows or even at cricket ground promoting their film.

So finally things are boiling down to basics of movie making. Now filmmakers are becoming more cautious on what the final message, they want to deliver to their audience. You will not see conventional drama of a boy falling in love with one girl and then fighting with her family to get his love.

As the types of movies are changing, the audience also expects something new and different in each coming movie. The overall taste has changed now. Movie making has come to an edge in last couple of years and it has become more issue based now. And Bollywood is ready to gel well.

Room acoustics play a huge role in creating a successful home cinema. The best home cinema hardware in the world will fail to perform at its best in a badly designed room.

The main issue in a home cinema tends to be excessive reverberation time – this is the time taken for a sound from a speaker to decay by 60dB below its original level – i.e. the amount of time it takes for a sound to dissipate in the room.

If you can imagine standing in a completely empty room with hard floors and ceilings and clapping your hands, the sound will echo for quite some time and therefore take a long time to decay (it reflects off the walls and floor). Now imagine standing in a carpeted bedroom and clapping your hands, the sound would not echo as much and disappear quite quickly (the bed and the carpet would absorb some of the sound). The bedroom has a lower reverberation time than the original room.

In a home cinema it is generally good to have a shorter reverberation time as if the reverberation time of one syllable overlaps the other it can be difficult to make out speech. The same thing happens with sound from the surround sound speakers – one effect overlaps another resulting in a muddle of sound.

Home Cinema Treatments

There are several ways to treat excessive reverberation time – changing the shape of the room is one. Imagine a square box, a wave comes out of the speaker hits the back wall and comes back 180 degrees on itself – muddled sound. Now imagine a complex shape like Octagon, some waves will still bounce back at 180 degrees but the majority will bounce off in different directions – the sound still exists but all the bouncing will reduce its energy quite quickly (and therefore volume) and keep the sounds distinct.

The other way to treat excessive reverberation is to absorb the wave – acoustic panels consist of acoustic substrate finished in fabric. This tends to be the most practical way to improve the sound in your room and the finishing fabric can be almost any design – improving aesthetics at the same time as the sound. Manufacturers such as Cineak and Cinematech have products available in a variety of sizes and shapes to cater for most situations.