How to write Naach-Gaana?
After yet another rejection of yet another offbeat screenplay (breakdancing gangstas, ichchadari nags with superpowers, indian zombies, refrigerators that molest little girls, romance between a guy and a dog, serial killer on a shopping spree, etc., not all in the same movie though), I decided to sell out (and hopefully sell a screenplay) by writing a mainstream movie.
I took inspiration from Lars who thundered back at critics when they accused Metallica of selling out with the Black album (a manifesto of metal and poetry), “Yeah, we sold out. Every arena and stadium we played at!”
And because all good and some bad things always come in 2s (like hot twins, underaged hot twins, and not so hot twins), I decided to write one for Amreeka/Hollywood, and another for India/Bollywood. The Hollywood film is a Thriller, and the Indian film is a RomComMusical.
Let’s man up (ladies can man up too). Our movies need naach-gaana like Kajol needs a good threading, Jhakaas needs a body wax, and Akshaye needs a hair transplant. Stat.
A lot of “new age” Indian screenwriters diss the musical, and choose the dark, noir type thrillers and crime dramas to earn street cred. Not on my Ma’s street.
My mother has read one screenplay and one short story of mine (Frigid). Don’t think she finished either, and we had some very uncomfortable conversations after that. She asked me when I was going to write something that she can watch and enjoy. This is for you, Me.
I decided to write the Mani Ratnam movie to end all Mani Ratnam movies. With Sujatha gone (may he rest in peace, and smile oh so beatifically upon my endeavor; this is the closest i have come to praying since 7th standard when I wanted Melanie to go with me), the way was clear.
I had my high concept. Yes, even romances and romcoms need a high concept – Ghost, Sleepless in Seattle, Priceless, Lakehouse [good cure for insomnia], Eternal Sunshine, etc.
Got my title. Rough sketched my characters. Even worked in a tyuist.
But, as PrabhuDeva (Benny Lava to the international denizens of youtube) would say, “Where is the dance?”, and Mithun was instructed in Dance Dance, “agar tujhe halwa khana hai to tujhe dance karna padega.”
I was flummoxed. I write plot driven screenplays (which also explore character through choice) that I structure pretty tightly. How do I weave Naach-Gaana into this?
In the 80s and 90s, our movies had Naach-Gaana freewilly, unencumbered by plausibility, dramatic need, or Bappi. As someone’s 6 year old daughter would reason, “Because.”
You had –
the song that introduced the nubile nymph prancing under a waterfall,
the song that professed love (some melodious tune with hero-heroine in a park),
the happy-family-before-badman-descends-and-massacres-all song,
the friendship song,
the raakhi song (which meant the sister was going to get raped followed by suicide/chompi), the raucous song that celebrated love (with the accompaniment of color-coordinated synchronized jumping jacks, heart healthy calisthenics, huge percussion instruments in a meadow, and colored balls/balloons filling the frame),
And my favorite. Let’s get the villain by smuggling into his lair dressed like a tranny on Halloween, and dancing to a huge RD Burman musical production with about 1 million dancers choreographed by Saroj Khan.
Came the 00s, and suddenly filmmakers started trying to integrate naach-gaana into their story through ridiculous and contrived devices. This meant that every gangster film had the beer bar chhamiya song, and all other films had the club/pub song with patented gyrations, camera moves, and besura singing.
Also, every four and a halfth movie had some music theme. Our protagonists turned into musicians, choreographers, filmmakers, cameramen etc.
You see where I’m going? There isn’t really a fresh way to do song and dance, and still keep it integrated to the plot. I remember watching Fida, and thinking the story is pretty neat (unless someone tells me that it was ripped off). But the film was killed by its songs. There are 4 songs of ShaKap proclaiming love-through-choreography, before the dhoka/tragedy, and another 4 songs after.
Why Carlos hWhy?
As I was crafting an elegant Fibonacci series to solve my problem, I read an interview by the Farrelly brothers where they talked about not writing chase scenes. “What’s the point? If it’s a good guy, he gets away. If it’s a bad guy, he gets caught.”
And I had my moment when I ran the streets of Manhattan naked (entirely unrelated).
Treat naach-gaana like set pieces in Hollywood action-adventure movies. What’s a set-piece? It’s a sequence or piece that has entertainment value, and can usually be moved around, because the outcome is pre-determined and they don’t affect the plot much. So all chase sequences, the Matrix fights, explosions and stuff from True Lies are all set pieces.
But they must follow one rule. Each set piece must be bigger and more exciting than the preceeding. And because I like challenges, I decided to throw in another rule for myself. Every song/dance must affect the plot. If I took out the song, the movie should not make sense.
I am going to study the fuck out of The Rock, and Bad Boyz, and structure my script like theirs.
Wish me luck.
Tags: dabba, mani ratnam, r d burman, Screenwriting
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Should be surely some fun man,looking at all the ground work. naachgaana in a textual mould is quite an indulgent trip. atleast they do provide the loo getaways for a better reason. I would suggest go jhoom barabar jhoom or go high concept naachgaana a la RDB. and then there is always the 80’s – with the obvious advantage of no particular indexing or flow. all situations will be the same – no situation. truly liberal interstices. the likes of rajiv rai,subhash ghai, ramesh sippy, ramesh behl(rose movies),shankar, vijay anand, naseer hussain, mansoor khan, yash chopra etc oviosly have some decent sort of authority and shops running on it so you might wanna look there for some more brownies. wish you all the luck.
Awesome psot dabba…
I like the way songs were integrated in Life in a Metro…totally different..while the movie was “really moving forward”..the songs juxtaposed the feelings of the character in the background…like an alter-ego of characters played by Pritam and team…
I guess we are gonna forget about lip-synch in a few years…now that i think of lip-synchs suck..lol..isnt that plagarism in some sense? lol
When u know d secret and master d trick, teach us too!:d
Go Baby Go
Dabba, are you hoping to sell your script outright or be part of a production?
Almost asked, “What’s a tyuist?” Figured it out.
There was a moment in Dor when it seemed like Ayesha’s character might have taken off into a flight of fancy when “You Are My Sonia” played, but it stayed real. There’s something lovely about that.
“Kajol needs a good threading,}”-Seriously
Amazing read
“I like the way songs were integrated in Life in a Metro
Can I just laugh and wish you all the best
…
Lots of thoughts keep coming up..
But the most is of being thoroughly entertained…
Please keep me posted…
Us posted?
Not very sure…
LOVED the piece!
I’m just going to use the “I told you so” cause it looks so cute…
Ignore!
:d/
:d/
i think, you should study Qayamat:City Under Threat and Bade Miya Chotey Miyan, if you want to master the art (!)
Interesting! and good luck.
A style of narration that takes help of other forms of art(say music)…what’s wrong with that? Of course to make it really effective one needs an intensity in the music that is rarely found and hence they end up being set pieces in most cases.
No naach-gaana is better than bad naach-gaana.
BTW going by your definition, aren’t sex scenes also set pieces in most cases?
@ Tushi –
I’m going for a different approach. The very act of singing and dancing should affect the plot, as opposed to having plot pertinent things happene while people sing and dance.
that is the challenge i have set up for myself. fortunately it’s a comedy so i think i can pull it off. if it were a thriller, that would be very difficult.
the guys you mentioned, while they have excellent command on naach-gaana, they won’t serve as suitable models for my purpose.
dekhte hain khichdi kaise pakti hai.
@ OM –
Life in a Metro used the band playing as a backdrop. That was different in the hindi movie context (done in something about mary) and refreshing. I am shooting for something else. see my comment to tushar.
I want to write song & dance sequences that affect the plot by dint of the characters actually singing and dancing.
from the time i wrote this post yesaterday till now, i already have 4 ideas for naach-gaana.
I am psyched.
@ J –
will do.
@ DPac, Evelyn –
Thanks D.
Eve,
the goal is to sell the screenplay, and come on board the production team in some capacity (producer titles are given to any gai-bhains these days), while someone else directs. After the film is a hit in the first language it gets made in, I will remake it in one or two other Indian languages, and this time I will know how to captain a bollywood ship, so will be able to direct it.
that’s the grand plan.
the moment in Dor was charming.
@ Vivek, Romal –
thanks. will definitely keep folks posted.
PFC is my home.
@ Goonda,
will watch Qayamat back to back with Rock to see where they inserted songs. i’ve seen bade/chhote, don’t think i want to watch it again except for that madhuri song.
@ neeraja –
Not the way I write sex scenes.
the very naach/gaana routine is gonna provide the plot twists??!!!!
thats gonna be one helluva difficult task. if u manage to pull it off without making it look contrived, that will be it!!
@ DPac –
I dream and also think far too highly of my own abilities. let’s see.
Dude…the idea sounds awesome…you shud go ahead and write it…can u give just a gist of whats cooking in that mind of yours?
IFFLA aa, wahaan bataoonga.
Dabba, Mimoh ki kasam, I was first to comment but have no idea where did that disappear. Anyway, we demand 5 songs with 2 repeated 3 times over (happy, sad and with super jhankaar beats).
subbu,
the post was deleted because it was still in draft stage and i accidentally published it. i saw your comment.
so far, i have 4 song scenarios that change the direction of the plot. 3 are upbeat dancish numbers. one sexy song for people to make happy time. i need one more melodious song, that can double as sad song, and end the film with super khankaar beats as titles roll.
Dabba, you’re on the right track. Romcoms with naach gaana thrown in is the flavour of the season in Bollywood.
These comedies can only get better.I’m sure you can show them how.
Hope you don’t have a twist in the tale:)
BTW, am developing a series of my posts into a romcom too.
@dabba(17)
Provide evidence to support your statement!
Neeraja, I know in advance that this is not the response you are looking for. But your challenge reminds me of the picturesque and fully clothed sex scene in The Namesake between Ashima and Ashoke (Tabu and Irrfan Khan) in which the result was Gogol.
@ arun
that’s what i hear from bhavani and others. fortunately for me, i don’t feel like i’m selling out since i really like the idea and it’s based on a true story.
@ neeraja, Evelyn:
i like to titillate just as much as other purveyors of rain songs, but an actual sex scene needs to have someone dying or some major dhokha for me to write it.
since bolly is so averse to sex scenes, and my mere existence is an assault on good taste, i shall refrain in this screenplay.
watch out for my next short story. all sex.
Alas then I fear we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum ala Unbreakable. I need to restrain myself from having my characters have sex at every opportunity. Funny thing is I turned down an offer to do camera for a porno. Didn’t like the script. :d
My invocations of Anais Nin, Emmanuelle and Milo Manara fell on deaf ears. Americans have a decidedly mass production mentality.
Mithun, please make that MOST Americans… Also, can a man honestly invoke Anais Nin? Perhaps only with some target-audience feedback.
Dabba, I’m an admirer of your writing and would watch any movie with your name on it, even if you said you sold out.
Of course, you’d have to actually tell us your name. :d
My bad. I should have said that most of the Americans THAT I HAVE MET involved in making of pornographic films have a mass production mentality.
As far as invoking Anais goes, Philip Kaufman did it quite well in “Henry and June”.
Mithun, you’ve got a point there. I thought you meant you were going to write something new that had the same effect on women as Anais Nin’s prose and put that on the screen. Portraying her sensibilities may be a tiny bit easier. You definitely have to pick the right actors for that.
Well actually my objection wasn’t really from a literary standpoint but rather a visual one. My invocations were more to give a sense of perspective than anything else. Needless to say the producer hadn’t heard of any of them so I bid them adieu.
Ah, reminds of the Bert Reynolds character in Boogie Nights who thought he was making cinema with artistic integrity, which in comparison to what came next, he probably was.
Indeed and this path has been a veritable rite of passage with legendary filmmakers like Scorsese and Coppola having started their careers with soft-core exploitation flicks.
Japanese directors in particular consider it very therapeutic and always try to squeeze in a V-cinema quickie to relax between major projects. There is an unverified urban legend that Kurosawa indulged in it incognito as well.
about 6 years ago, when i firt started taking all this seriously. i took a class to learn how to use an XL. i met this guy there, and we decided to go into business together.
the bsiness of porn that is
porn is a multi billion dollar industry and 80% of that caters to straight men. i wanted to make porn for straight women.
my conceit – 40+ regular women thatwere average in appearance and endowment with young studs. the goal was to creat emotional porn. we completed 3 films and shot a 4th. we advertised in the raunchy encounter sections of the local pages for the women, and hired ripped men from the gay scene.
it was all about the mood lighting, ambience, aesthetically shot with close ups of eyes and the woman’s mouth, and the guy’s derrier and abs. ofcourse, there was actual fucking and we edited it to create the impression of hard core with a money shot thrown in.
needless to say, our production costs were off the charts for porn. we had dolly moves for yoni’s sake.
there is no money in porn production. all the money is in distribution. and it’s nearly impossible to compete with the 18 yr old co-ed that decides to upload her cherry popping for $5.
we shuttered down, and my mate went back to the construction business while i deicded to make family friendly comedies and other wholesome entertainments.
@ evelyn –
the day i sell a screenplay, i’ll out myself.
Maybe I’m the odd woman out, but I think it’s the literary conceit that makes a scene hot, not particularly the camera angles or body parts.
Situations like furtiveness, daring, hesitation and guilt enhance the moment a thousandfold. Even better is when the woman makes a turning-point-like choice or has some control, without being a cartoon-y dominatrix. (Henry and June is a great example.)
–Just adding my two cents in case it’s helpful. One girl’s voice does not a trend make. You should talk to others.
it was very much along those lines, but all the emotions you suggested are evoked in cinema through the position and movememnt of the camera. and there was definitely none of that pizza boy, house wife nonsense.
@dabba
Don’t knock the pizza boy. It’s been a source of inspiration for generations of lusty teenagers. Btw where can I see your attempts at porn ?
@Evelyn
While I haven’t read much literature or even bestsellers, I have found that writing believable and erotic sex scenes is an art not many writers are adept at. My favs though poles apart in style and esteem are Harold Robbins and Haruki Murakami.
I’m an avid fan of the annual bad sex awards where the most unwittingly hilariously descriptions of coitus are championed.
Shantaram though being an amazingly wonderful book has one sex scene of note overflowing with what I affectionately call P3 (Pretentious Purple Prose).
The offending line goes something like this.
“Her body was my chariot and I rode it into the sun.”
@Dabba
I was offered to start my own Porn Production for Hustler with my friends. It was quite tempting. 2 things happened. I figured just with common sense that the money must be in the distribution. Which in my case would be Larry Flynt. Thats why he is a bollionaire. Second my actor friend who was the link to Hustler moved to NY to join a band for 6 months. Unfortunately I did not learn the lessons the hard way
And about the PIZZA BOY/ House Wife thing. Its very far far away from BULLSHIT!
@ mainak –
good for you.
i said nonsense not bullshit. not questioning the plausibility of the pizza boy scenario, but just commenting on the triteness of it, since it makes its way into every porn.
cliche, so boring.
@Dabba
Maybe boring to watch on TV….