The importance of technical expertise in filmmaking is only too obvious. That is what makes a film like ‘Independence Day’, though fictitious, so natural and watch able and Nepali films so made-up and unnatural. Nonetheless, the Nepali film industry has, over the years, seen big time improvement in technical skill, as it has been able to realize quite significant investments in the field. Here we look at how important technical expertise really is.

Once the financier and producer (and may be even the director) have got together and worked out details of the film, the first step, usually, is to record the songs which, without saying, is an integral part of Nepali films. Of course, some filmmakers choose to shoot other scenes of the film, but the on-going trend is to do the songs first.

Earlier, Nepali filmmakers had to go to either Mumbai or Calcutta for film development purposes. But the birth of Film processing Laboratory in Nepal Film Development Company eliminated the trouble. It also marked the beginning of a trend. Today, Nepal Film Development is doing rapid business.

Next in line is the shooting which is a very technical aspect. So is the purchase and sale of films and negatives. At the moment, eighty percent of Nepali movies or all film markers that depend on the Nepal Film Development Company (NFDC) for technical support, use Kodak film products.

Filmmakers these days use 16 mm films. While the price of a single can of Kodak brand of negatives is around Rs. 6,200, a film normally requires between 60 and 90 cans of negatives.

After completion of the shooting, preparing the rush print is a key aspect. Getting ready the negative of a film is quite similar to that of preparing negative from an ordinary film. There is only one lab – which is made available by the Nepali Film Development Company  that prepares the negatives. The company’s technicians says. "The lab has done a lot for film-making in Nepal." Setting up a lab calls for huge investment, which is perhaps why a second lab has not been able to be developed in the country.

NFDC takes the help of its stain-back machines, which directly cut the negatives, NFDC planning to install the ABID technique under which the negatives are first transferred into video and then edited with the help of a computer.

Dubbing follows the editing stage. NFDC is equipped with a dubbing studio. Here, the characters of the film have to dub dialogues that they had delivered during the film’s shooting. This stage requires expert recordist who is able to see that the two dialogue deliveries coincide perfectly.

This phase is called mixing and also includes, for example, placing appropriately other sounds such as the cries of birds in the jungle. This activity could be carried out here in Nepal since only very recently. Till date plenty of Nepali films have used the mixing studio at NFDC.

It is now time for publicity. For this, songs and important scenes are converted into telecines so that they can be run on TV. Until very recently, there was only one telecine machine in Nepal, owned by Nepal Television. As a result, one had to get in queue to get the telecine ready. But that is no more the case now since NFDC have installed a telecine machine each.
The film is then ready.