Indian Screenwriters’ Conference 2008 – I Was There
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I attended the two-day Indian Screenwriters’ Conference 2008, and to prove it, I have, apart from a bunch of notes and quotes, a small boil at the top corner of my left ass. The theme of this year’s conference, which was dedicated to the late Vijay Tendulkar, was “Has The Indian Script Arrived?” We had quite a formidable collection of speakers on the roster: Rakeysh Mehra, Kamal Hasan, Abbas Tyrewala, Navdeep Singh, Nasreen Munni Kabir, Amol Palekar, Prakash Jha, Jahnu Barua, Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi, Govind Nihalani, Dr Jabbar Patel, Kamlesh Pandey, Amole Gupte, Vipul Shah, Imteyaz Hussain, Vinod Rangnath, Rajesh Dubey, Sriram Raghavan, Sridhar Raghavan, Sanjay Gadhvi, Rohan Sippy, Lekh Tandon, Onir, Atish Kapadia, Pubali Chaudhuri, Vinay Shukla, Ram Mirchandani…Among those who were scheduled but couldn’t make it were Anurag Kashyap, Ashutosh Gowarikar and Subhash Ghai. Also present in the audience were Vishal Bhardwaj, Piyush Mishra, Deepti Naval, Mita Vashist and Imtiaz Ali. The backbone and the adrenaline of the whole event was Anjum Rajabali, who held things together with his wit and his no-nonsense attitude (which was necessitated on quite a few occasions). Also keeping it together behind the scenes was Robina Gupta, whom I envy for being able to keep a cool head even in such huge organizational work.
As a kid, when I used to read the credits for a Hindi film, I used to find the story credit coming waaaayyyy before the lyricist, music director etc, and I used to wonder, isn’t the story the most important thing about the movie? Now, when I watch an international film, I usually find the writing credits displayed just before the producer or director. Just goes to show the difference in importance given to the writer here and elsewhere. How on earth do people expect to make a proper film without a well-written script? No one constructs even a two-storey building without consulting a professional architect, and yet a writer isn’t given the proportionate amount of importance or money when it comes to a film.
Things look set to change however. In fact, they’ve already started changing. We already have a new set of star writers in people like Anurag Kashyap, Abbas Tyrewala, Jaideep Sahni etc. In fact, Ram Mirchandani of UTV mentioned that they were paying Jaideep Sahni for their Tamil and Telegu remakes of Khosla Ka Ghosla.
The number one issue at the conference was the draft of the model contract for writers. It’s been worked upon for quite a few months by some senior writers and a team of specialised lawyers who outlined the gist of the contract. It lays down minimum wages, payment schedule and percentages and a whole load of other things which not only help protect a new writer against exploitation (yahoo!) but also enforce certain levels of accountability on part of the writer. The contract, of course, needs to be agreed upon by the producers’ association as well as the FWICE, but once that’s done, hopefully writers should be getting their due. Another important clause will be that a producer cannot bring in a co-writer without an NOC from the existing writer. One of the horror stories we heard was how a producer had stuck his son’s name in the screenplay credits along with a very senior writer.
Writing about the whole event session by session would be too long, so I’ll just reproduce the significant and interesting bits which I managed to note down.
Anjum Rajabali, as a screenwriting teacher and a consultant, sees around 85 scripts a year. He said young people are inhibiting themselves with market considerations. “When asked to bend over, many of us crawl.” The carnage and turbulence around us finds no expression in our writing.
Govind Nihalani said this about the late Vijay Tendulkar: “He went by his instinct about what he wanted to see next. He didn’t read any scriptwriting books.”
What a golden bit of advice! Such a matter of common sense, and yet we tend to lose sight of it once we get to know about a few words of screenwriting jargon.
The charisma of Kamal Hasan was evident as soon as he went up on stage in the pre-lunch session. “We have a Tamil saying: a good writer must be hungry. We all are hungry right now, so we must all be good writers. To add to the tension, I have a full bladder. So this session will be short.” Rakeysh Mehra, to add to the tension even further, offered him a bottle of water.
Nasreen Munni Kabir talked about Indian cinema and world audiences. One of the noteworthy things she said was “Commercial cinema depends on fantasy, niche cinema on reality.”
Rakeysh Mehra and Kamlesh Pandey’s recounting of the origin of Rang De Basanti was quite inspiring. Some producer had actually asked, “Basanti ka role kaun karega?” under the impression that this was to be a remake of Sholay. Mr Pandey went the whole hog and told the producer yes, it’s a remake, but from the point of view of Basanti.
Both of them said they write about what they’ve lived. Rakeysh Mehra had lost a friend to a MIG crash, and he used to do the drink-beer-and-jump-into-the-pool thing that Aamir Khan and Sharman Joshi did in the film.
“You don’t start with structure,” said Rakeysh Mehra. Structure is what emerges once you put everything together. I was glad to hear that from him, because Rang De Basanti is one of my favourite counter-examples against blindly following Hollywood-Syd-Field structure. Others are Life is Beautiful, Black Friday, 21 Grams, Memento (which is a unique work in itself), The Prestige, Memories of Murder, The Chaser, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye…
Atish Kapadia said we shouldn’t be too cynical about TV because TV channels do greenlight good stuff, and TV writing pays much more reliably than films. Vinod Rangnathan agreed with the latter point, and said that standards have fallen because of writers now having 3-4 shows on hand simultaneously. As soon as TRPs see a fall and there’s a hit film around like Jaane Tu or Dostana, writers get calls to insert story tracks borrowed from those movies. If it’s Diwali or Holi, all 100 episodes from all the shows will be showing the same Diwali/Holi celebrations shot the same way. And if it’s Karva Chauth, god help you.
Rajesh Dubey was hilarious in his narration of some of the experiences a TV writer has to go through. People with his narrative skills are much envied in writers’ circles, I’m sure.
I’ve become a fan of Abbas Tyrewala after his talk – the man is really passionate and knows his stuff. (It would’ve been easier to write about people I admire if I didn’t have anything to do with the industry. Now that I do, I open myself to accusations of vested interests.) We’d all like to do great work, he said, but most of our work will be staple diet work. Anupam Kher had also said that once we accept that 90% of the work we get will be monotonous and 10% will be great, life becomes much easier.
The Mahabharat, said Abbas, is the ultimate epic on the grey shades of human nature, but it’s been oversimplified to black-and-white. Who on earth would’ve actually named their sons Duryodhan and Dushashan?
During one of the sessions, as people were filing in, Anjum sir was making a couple of introductions and in his booming voice mentioned Abbas’ name just as he was making his way to his seat. Abbas’ startled reaction shot at that moment was priceless.
Rajkumar Hirani has been termed by many as the nicest man in the industry. He mentioned that since he’s professionaly trained as an editor, he always sees his film in terms of cuts. At the writing stage, he asks himself, “Am I smiling? Am I crying?” Since the Indian audience is so vast and varied, the best he can do is try to satisfy himself first. I couldn’t agree more. (Maybe I’ll only be qualified to dare to agree with the bigwigs when I have an award-winning or box-office-winning film under my belt.)
Abhijat Joshi had another golden tip. The worst way of showing someone’s anger is having him say, “I’m angry.” The second worst way is having someone else say, “He’s angry.” The best way is having the audience think it on their own. He also had three commandments which he said were passed on to him by Vidhu Vinod Chopra: 1. You will entertain 2. You will not sell your soul to entertain 3. You will treat each film as if it’s going to be your last. Abbas differed, saying we need to treat each film as if it’s our first; we need a healthy fear each time.
The session on politics and scripts was chaired by Prakash Jha. At some level or the other, said Atul Tiwari, politics is always present in a film. We have this quote flying around about not all Muslims being terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims, while we conveniently forget Punjab, the North-East, Malegaon, etc. “A man who doesn’t care about politics is like a drowning man who doesn’t care about water.” Great line. He also said that when a political film fails, the blame is put on the issue/genre instead of the actual merits or demerits of the film.
Jahnu Barua is from my state, Assam, so it was especially interesting to hear what he had to say on the subject of politics and films. Both the state government and the militants wanted him to make films for them. He did a lot of research and ultimately refused both. Noteworthy quote: “A filmmaker needs to be slightly crazy. Sometimes fully. My wife’s also a filmmaker, so we’re both crazy and therefore we have no problems together.”
On a personal note, I’ll take unfair advantage of this being my blog to categorically state that no one in Assam is interested in dumb things like seceding from India. The blasts and terrorist attacks one hears about are carried out by puppets controlled by masters hiding in Bangladesh.
Kamlesh Pandey was an inspiring, if eccentric, speaker. “Mujhe apni izzat ki koi fikr nahin. Agar hoti toh writer nahi banta.” He quoted Bhagat Singh: “Aazadi ka matlab ye nahin ki angrez zaalimo ki jagah hindustani zaalim le lein.” When he had gone to an actor with the script of Rang De Basanti, “Actor ki ma ne kaha mera beta marega nahi. Maine kaha toh phir ye film aapka beta karega nahi.” He also said, “Kai log hain is line mein jo struggle karte hain…apni Mercedes mein. ‘Jai Hollywood mata ek DVD de de’.”
Sriram Raghavan was asked by Anjum sir to make his writers-directors session ‘zingy’, and he did with his trademark self-effacing humour and quick-cuts brains. He mentioned that he didn’t have any ‘vishesh tippani’ to offer us as he himself was struggling with his own script. He gets many bad scripts, he said. They may be done in Final Draft and may be registered with the FWA, but no matter how prettily you package it, a bad script is a bad script. Pubali Chaudhuri got the most cheers as she went up to speak. She’s quite an inspiration to young writers like me and several other students of screenwriting. (She’s an FTII alumnus.) (She’s the writer of Rock On, just in case someone doesn’t know, which shouldn’t be the case.)
The writers and producers session, chaired by Abbas, was quite a passionate one. In light of Amole Gupte’s example with Taare Zameen Par, Navdeep Singh suggested taking a script directly to the stars. (Of course, us PFC walas have been lucky enough to be able to share in more of his knowledge ;)
The funny thing about the Q&A sessions was that the questions most of the time were embarassingly inane or obvious. Barring a few sensible ones, most of the questions had me going “Kahan kahan se aate hain yeh?” If someone remembers any of the priceless questions, please write them down in the comments. The vast majority of writers were sensible people who liked to be silent observers. The few attention-seekers and self-promoters who tried to hog the audience mike provided quite a bit of entertainment for the rest.
I had a disquietening observation which I happened to make since I was sitting in the top rows most of the time. A disproportionately high percentage of writers seem to be bald or on their way there. I’ve always blamed my genes for the inch of hairline that I’ve already lost, but now I wonder if my choice of profession as an actor-writer might have something to do with. Nah. Maybe I just worry too much.
(Oh God! I’ve got a deadline! Sankalan! 20th December! Just five days. Help!!!!!! No, just kidding. It’s going fine.)
(And I’ve never written a blog on such tiptoe before. Many VIPs are probably going to read it, so I’ve had to be really careful.)
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
Saala, in two days of the conference you come back with the supreme knowledge that writers turn bald… ho gaya kalyan.
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Sorry Oz…Were you planning on turning a writer yourself ;)
Oh that reminds me. As soon as I get my next cheque I need to buy your book
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Kenny..there seems to be a lot of tiptoe here..I can understand..but would have preferred your normal rip!
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Ki korbo, Indraneelda? You can’t go around ripping apart your competitive hotel’s management in public
And my hands are now similarly tied.
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Hi…….
.
This is Ankush. Frankly speaking I am new into this field. Actually I am a student
To be very practical you don’t know me, I might not know u, I mean I know you but still I don’t know you, but I know your work….offff…what an unclear picture, I need a specs in my mind and where the hell I am going?
I just want to say that you wrote it beautifully. You really brought back 13th & 14th Dec on 15th Dec
.
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great summary kenny.. maza aa gaya
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Good post.
“(Oh God! I’ve got a deadline! Sankalan! 20th December! Just five days. Help!!!!!! No, just kidding. It’s going fine.)”
If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of deadline are you referring to? And when will the top three be selected?
All the best to you and the other five contestants.
Thanks
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Thanks Striker
Rohan, it’s the deadline for submitting the first full draft. I think the top three will be selected within a month of submission. Thanks for the wishes
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Kenny…thanks for writing such a informative and detailed piece…all the best for sankalan…Thanks for attending ISC. Your numbers have really encourages us.
Kumar Gautam
EC member, FWA
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Shukriya, Mr Kumar Gautam
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@ Kenny…great recollection dude..thanks a lot..how i wish we could have got video footage too..
btw..Abbas Says “Who on earth would’ve actually named their sons Duryodhan and Dushashan?”
heheh..this is exactly what i said here: http://passionforcinema.com/writers-help/
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Thanks for sharing Kenny! It is interesting (the least) to know what’s going on in the minds of people who we generally see/hear about in ‘filmy’ sites/magazines… Someday, I hope to attend the event..
Great job of summarizing!!
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@OM
I just re-read your piece – yeah it’s exactly what you’d written. I doubt the VHP would let you make that film though
@Sarang
Apart from Screen, no other magazine takes films seriously. So it’s nice to hear first hand info from the biggies. And it’s even better when you’re they’re speaking not on a public platform but in private. That’s when the real stories come out ;)
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left me wanting more …more more more ….
kenny kya precis likha re ….thoda aur details jaata :(
thanks for this
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Abbe details likhta toh this post would have been quadruple its current length. And welcome back!
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baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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Kenny… quite vicarious!
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Anjum Rajabali deserves a huge applause!! The conference was executed very smoothly indeed. It was such a well planned event.
Especially the writer’s contract was very well thought. I had made notes about the things which need to be incorporated in the writer’s contract, going of the past experiences and contracts I have come across. To my surprise everything was covered by the team of FWA. It even went into very details of most of the issues a writer faces. Must have taken lots and lots of hours of brainstorming of lawyers, writers, directors/producers.The driving force being Anjum!
The venue was excellent, the food was good, small things like having multiple counters for food, snacks, tea, designing the banner, the dias was of top quality.
The student volunteers from whistling woods, ftii, were so humble.
The event was a huge success, with every seat in the auditorium occupied!
No wonder a huge team of around 50 people was involved in making the event successful.
Last but not the least Kenny, thanks for taking your invaluable time for putting this on PFC! Considering the fact you have few days left to submit your draft to sankalan, you have not only posted this article but also commenting on it:)
All the best for the next round!
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Mr Joshi and Mr Chopra kam se kam quote to sahi karo … gyan dene mai bhi chori kya
) … shayad humane sunane mai galati kar di hai
Quote
“Abhijat Joshi … , He also had three commandments which he said were passed on to him by Vidhu Vinod Chopra: 1. You will entertain 2. You will not sell your soul to entertain 3. You will treat each film as if it’s going to be your last.”
Link
http://www.bergmanorama.com/bergman_eachfilm59.htm
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Hi, I was there too and I will be glad as an Aspiring Producer myself if the Model Contract gets active ASAP. It will be a great achievement.
Regards
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Kenny I was there too, but only on Sunday. This was a tremendous effort by the FWA Office bearers and the guest speakers. You’ve summarised the happenings very well.
Wanted to meet up with you but the names on the delegate cards were written in small letters and hence unreadable from a distance!
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Great work Kenny!
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@Arun
Manjeet had mentioned that you were around. Too bad we couldn’t meet.
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