Bollywood Trivia: Things We Miss On Screen

What are some of the things that used to be staples in Hindi movies but we see less of now, if at all... could be anything, good or bad

1. Sweat patches : Sometimes watching an older film (pre-2000s) I would notice that (usually in a song) someone would lift their arms up and you'd see a big old sweat patch. In those days, there was no HD so the cinematographer probably thought "...jaane de yaar" ☺️

2. Random Comedy Skits: Remember the 90s when you'd watch a 3-hour action film or romantic drama, and it'd be filled with a bunch of characters (Johnny Lever and others) with their sub-plot running parallel to the main plot, but kinda disconnected... just to make sure we are entertained.

3. Continuity - Again, happened a lot in the 90s, films took years and years to make because it was the era of "secretaries" who gave producers 6-hour time slots for their artist to be available, so they end up doing 2-3 shifts per day, working on 9 films at a time... continuity was often lost, with some dramatic hairstyle changes being the most peculiar... and maybe weight/build(?) 🤪 so you'd see Salman Khan with a mullet and a short-back-and-sides in the same film with zero explanation...

4. Songs - Lip-sync songs was not just the norm, but also a much loved and significant signature part of Bollywood films... we have been transitioning more into "realism" and attempts are being made to integrate the music more into the story (ie. lead star is a singer) or they go to the disco and two weddings in the film and hence a band/musical number is justified...

- Delving deeper into this, I have noticed that songs have become much much shorter in the last decade. The average song duration was around 6 minutes in the 80s, 5 minutes in the 90s, and 4 minutes in the 00s. Today there are countless hits that are 3.5 minutes or less, this is a significant change. (these are my personal "calculated" estimates by the way... the only credibility is that I have a collection of playlists titled "1954, 1955, 1956... etc" so have often noticed this) 🤓

- Another way that music is changing is: "DANCE BREAKS"... remember back in the day, you'd have a love song, it starts with a "mukhda" (intro/hook)... then it goes to the 1st Verse.. then there was a elaborate musical interlude in which we'd see the hero and heroine DANCING their asses off in the video before going into the 2nd verse and again repeat followed by 3rd verse.

Example 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEpFiDKqH7E

Example 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-m4cX22UlQ

Today we don't see that anymore, songs follow a different format, it's veered more towards Pop Music in the English language (USA, UK Chart Hits)... with very a very brief Intro / Verse / Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Bridge / Verse-Outro ...hence also making songs shorter. I can see how this has come about, wonder if anyone else has noticed this or anything else ❤️

Interesting list.

I liked that you started the list with 'sweat patches' lol