Film Mughal-E-Azam (Now in Colour) released at WWW.DVDVCDPLAZA.COM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) June 20, 2005 -- It was K. Asif's dream to see Mughal-E-Azam in colour. 60 years later the magic of technology has filled the doomed love story between the Mughal Crown Prince Salim and the beautiful, ill fated court dancer, Anarkali, in colour. After its hall release a few montsh back the VCD & DVD of the final color print is now released at www.dvdvcdplaza.com.

Originally released 85 percent in black and white and 15 percent in color, Sterling Investment Corporation, the original production company of the film has now re-released the all color version of the film.

�To make this masterpiece completely colored, we were involved in a total of18 months in research and 10 to 12 months of actual work,� commented Salgia who employed 150 artists in Mumbai and Chennai to complete the task of new colorized work. Salgia explained that the film�s original music score was completely re-recorded by musicians and singers in Mumbai and Chennai.

The sound mixing was actually done in Hollywood. �I�ve had many famous Bollywood actors in India rave about this film, including Rani Mukherjee who is a big fan of Dilip Kumar,� said Salgia adding, the project�s biggest challenge was to colorize the film in a �truthful� way in accordance to as if it was originally made in color in 1960, which was film director K Asif�s initial vision.

Unlike the West, which sees colorization as an artificial tampering with an artist�s work, in the case of this film, director Asif wanted to make the film entirely in color. In 1957, color technology came to India and Asif decided to shoot one reel of Mughal-E-Azam in color. It came out so well that he decided to shoot the last three reels in color and then asked his backers to finance a re-shoot of the whole film in color. The distributors refused to support his idea and the film was released 85 percent in black and white and 15 percent in color. As a result, the film started in B & W, became color before the interval, then returning to B & W and then turned back to color at the end of the film.

Restoration Director Salgia added that the laborious process of research for the colorization involved studying 400 year-old Mogul paintings that the film�s director Asif used himself. This helped them recreate a �truthful� art direction for the film. Salgia explained to an intrigued audience that while working on a scene where Prince Salim (Dilip Kumar) is holding a rose, the technicians tried to colorize the rose as red but the software rejected red as a color. The technicians later discovered this was because in the Mogul Period a rose would always be pink.

One of Mughal-E-Azam�s most famous lines spoken by Anarkali (Madhubala) relates to the fact that a rose is really an imperfect eternal symbol of love when she says sadly: �Thorns need not fear of fading.� Certainly this film with its newly colored version will not fade away but become more popular as the classic it is.

VCD Rs 199/-
DVD Rs 499/-