Let me work
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I didn’t know her name. I just remembered her face and that she used to work for a television channel. We both share the same neighborhood.
After school, I had taken part in a VJ contest where we finally broke the ice. I wondered whether she would remember me after all these years. She was my last hope. I remembered her smile perfectly. What was this inexplicable curiosity that was doing hoodoo on me?
I asked a few shopkeepers about her, then a few more tenants of her neighborhood. A few minutes later, I was standing outside a metal door. I was told to bang the door. I followed the instruction hesitantly. Her mother appeared from the window. I greeted her and asked the girl’s name. I didn’t know I had such courage! Soon my girl was standing right in front of me.
She didn’t remember me. After giving a long introduction, I told her the purpose of my surprise visit. She gave me time. I took out my script and storyboard. She showed interest in my story. She asked me some important questions. I tried to answer them.
“This film is for PFC…”
“PFC?”
Woman / Salik Shah (2005/6)
I had called a few female actresses before meeting her. They didn’t ask about the film or the director. All they wanted to know was the amount. They kept me telling they were with this and that director at this and that hotel when I wanted to meet them. It was better for me to forget them. And I didn’t want to approach a big actress who had asked me whether I had made any short film the other day.
Two years ago, a friend had proposed me to join him to shoot a documentary about a place in the mountains. I was already frustrated with journalism and writing here, but I wasn’t ready for Mumbai yet. I had no choice other than going to Delhi. Now I wanted to meet this friend who had a brilliant ability for storytelling. He was the one to tell me about the story about two children and a pair of shoes. He was the one who told me that I would need at least two lakhs rupees for my simple short. I didn’t know cinema then. I still don’t know, I told him.
“Learning is a comma, not a full stop,” he said. “You’re always so restless. A film doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient…”
‘Be patient!’ What is patience? Is it helplessly waiting for things to fall in one place? Is it seeing your family suffering while you ruin your life? Is it keeping quiet when you are ready to explode? What is patience? Is it running after producers with money expecting a little favor? Is it trying to fake smiles in dance bars while drinking expensive wines and listening to their big plans and proposals when you’re penniless, jobless and now homeless as well? What is patience? Is it tall promises of a glamorous future? I want to work. Give me serious work. I don’t want to talk, Sir, please. Let me work.
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
Female actresses!
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Once in a while you can manage with such things also. Matriarchal society may/should define all the professions in such a way that female of the species gets the preference, as it works now in a male dominated system.
Whenever matriarchy takes a lead in a society people following profession of acting may/should be defined as male actresses and female actresses.
…
At present Gender issue is passing through a transition phase so there can be new definitions after 5 or 10 years because old system will not be able to represent all the people in a right way.
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One has to see if s/he is reacting as a person or as a writer because in second case creativity of mind plays a bigger role and reality is given a different shape.
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Film world is not an organized sector. May you get victory over the struggling phase.
If possible, once you get success and become stable in this profession, try to help newcomers, who have talent, without maintaining the traditional ways of ragging or dynamics of saas bahu type relation where seniors/saas etc think because they had got problems while they were admitted to a new system so new people should also follow this tough struggle.
It is not necessary if one person has tales of spending nights at benches of park or railway platform then whole world should pass through this absurdity.
Everybody has to face a struggle in every field but due to unorganized nature of filmworld this remains a world (apart from politics) where they do not want to help newcomers while every other area always needs young blood.
Many people take pleasure in seeing other people passing through problems.
It can not be said what happens to your struggle but whenever you get success, try to play a fair game with coming generation (possessing a talent) so that positive changes may enter film world also.
All the best.
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Didn’t get the point of your post?
Didn’t get why this post in PFC ?
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Looks rant.
Reading the first paragraph I thought Salikji wrote story of some ‘Pakeeza’ type woman.
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didn’t get the point!!! someone who is dying to work and doesn’t get an oppurtunity is not allowed to work or given that one shot he needs to make it big, an someone asks what is the need of this post. alright we are here to talk about cinema, i get that. but shouldn’t there be a place for people to just let go… i believe this is definetely not the forum for this kinda rant, not at all. however, when someone established or someone who is part of the film industry, whines about how the film industry is trying to fuck him over and how the system is just not working for him and it needs changing, that is ok. RIGHT!!! give the guy a break… maybe he needs to just chill. but if u understand his pain, is this what you have to say to him, why here?
Come on!!!
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I couldnt sympathise with this article and his concern. May be his writing wasn’t that strong.
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keep us posted Salik … liked the article… kept it bare and simple…. more interested in how your journey comes along (can somehow feel its going to be quite an talkable one) …. rather than pass my ideas over things I cant comment about… but keep going… you’d strike your sequence of events soon
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as johny bhai keeps screaming from all those daru ka bottles… keep walking…
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like that thought Magik…
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Hmm… I don’t get this point of “strugglers” asking for work in the cinema industry especially in the direction department. If you are an aspiring first time director with a story to tell, you are not exactly asking for work. You are asking somebody to invest millions in you so that you can tell/sell your story to potential audience. Imagine the same scenario in any other industry..let me try…I am a fresh out graduate in the field of computer science…I have a product idea..I want to start a company. Good luck with finding investors! For every Jobs, Gates or a Page, there are countless millions who do not find any funding even after years of struggling.
I am not making any reference to Salik here. But, I am quite amused by the so called struggle stories of first time directors espcially those with no prior experience in the industry, or even with some 1 or 2 film old directors complaining about producers not being educated enough to invest in them. They are expected to struggle like hell which is the norm and if somebody didn’t and managed to make a film, that would a “story”.
Go ahead and pound me
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Completely agree.
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Siva,
Did you keep trained people in mind or people having no formal training, while making the comment?
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The people who I had in mind are those who are not applying for the foot soldier jobs before aiming to be be commander-in-chief. I can fully identify with all those Assistant directors, writers and people working in the other technical departments with proven credentials in whatever cinema related field they are in, aspiring to be directors and their struggles to make a movie do make interesting stories when they are successful.
While this blog triggered some of those thoughts, this has nothing to do with the author. I felt like taking the side of all those producers who are often termed as brainless money bags, proposal makers etc.. not that I can identify myself with them financially.
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Few more thoughts come into mind after readiung your second comment.
To me it seems difficult to cover arts related fields in one definition. Cinema too is an open medium and anything and everything can work there to get a result.
And contradictory examples will be found in cinema related areas.
Someone has got tons of money through his traditional business which can be related to selling potatos or potato chips and he gets this idea that entertainment sector specially filmmaking is also a profitable business and he takes out 100M rupees and reach to Bombay to make a film. He has no prior experience in filmmaking but his lacking will not become a constraint and many experienced filmmakers will be very happy to make film with him and his money. So to produce a film, zero experience is hardly a hurdle.
Same happens in almost every field of business and many ventures are started because somebody has got the money and he starts a business with somebody whose ideas he has liked. Somewhere he is lacking in ideas but his instincts are also saying that this idea may work.
In every area, experienced people develop an eye, an understanding to identify the talent in newcomers.
Same should be true for producers and financiers etc involved in the filmmaking.
No?
Some decision makers are very conservative in their approach and such people exist in every field and they do never show any trust on new people.
While some are always looking for new talent.
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If we don’t remain strict to aspirant directors only then do we oppose any fresh mind anywhere in any other area?
For example publishing Industry and first time writers/poets etc?
Many of the masterpieces have been first books of their creators.
Some publication houses are very conservative and publish only very establish names only and some are always looking for fresh ideas of new authors.
Aspirant writers in films also come under that explanation and their freshness may/should not be looked down as a lacking but a different way of thinking which can generate new ideas.
A fresh mind may think entirely new ideas which can not enter the minds of veterans working in the film industry for years.
Films like areas flourish on the basis of new ideas, new stories and new talent.
Rather whole non technical part of cine making can welcome first timers with open hands.
If we consider actors. They should have a talent.
Sometimes they have a natural talent and even if some actors are not having any proper training but they learn fast.
If a director needs a fresh face, who has not acted on stage or in films before. What will be the situation here?
Different projects need different kind of actors.
Now the director, if he has some vision then he can make a good film. He may not have experience of so many films behind him to support his claim to direct the film but he may have very strong content and he may be clear in how to convert that content into a visual material.
In arts people are learning on a daily basis and this leaning may not be seen on surface.
Many a time teams consisted fully of first timers have made wonderful films and which have transcended the barriers of time while there have been cases where everybody associated with the films had experience of many years but films they made simply sucked in every department of filmmaking.
Saaransh, Arth, Janam, Naam, Shiva etc were not highly competent films in technical terms but contentwise they were very good and still watched by thousands of people on a daily basis. They still posses a charm.
Technical competency does not bring a guranatee that team will surely make a very good film.
This open ended aspect pushes people to imagine and dream in arts related fields and it can not be stopped.
True in today’s time when cameras are within the reach of aspiring filmmakers, they may have samples of their work to sho their talent but filmmaking is ultimately a team work.
At present filmmaking is depedent too much on people controlling filmworld because of their money power and distribution channel.
Still a high budget is required to make a film but soon with the possibility of availability of good camera at an affordable price may change the scene and monopoly of biggies can become a thing of past.
Prices of other technical services required in the filmmaking process can also witness a decline.
Then perhaps we will not be discussing these things. Creative aspects of filmmaking will not be suppressed and oppressed by financial aspects of filmmaking process.
Why someone should invest money in somebody’s vision is affecting the thinking at present. But as mentioned in one point when a new producer enters the filmworld his inefficiency is covered by the tons of money he has.
Money controls the creativity. Questions are raised on creative people’s creativity and capability and every if and but is associated with creative people only.
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RK, you raised many interesting and good points. I was carefully referring to only the direction department and not generalizing it to extend it to other art forms. I am quoting RGV from one of his recent blogs here to highlight that film direction is not a well defined art in itself and the same set of rules don’t apply here.
“Can you say more about why film is an art? And what does a director exactly do in it?
Ans: To start with a film is nothing but a medium which amalgamates various art forms into a coherent whole through one person’s consciousness which is the director. By this entire process he intends to create an emotional impact on the viewer. The director is also the link between the performing arts such as actors and the primary arts such as music etc.
The various actors and technicians are nothing but a means to an end for the director which only he can visualize. So inspite of him by definition not being a primary artist himself he is channelizing them into a certain very specific direction and that’s why rightfully he is called a director.
To be able to do this, if not a complete understanding of all arts, the least he should possess is a clarity in his head about why he likes or dislikes a certain art form and this in turn would trigger his creativity.
A badly directed film would just make the actors and technicians go through an exhibition of their individual arts with intentions originated by they themselves without the directors intensity singularly backing them towards one specific direction which would understandingly result in a hotchpotch clashing of their individual intentions and will infect the film with a terrible disease called “multiplicity of objectives”.”
The big difference between a first time writer and a first time director is that, the writer can present a finished product to the potential investor for evaluation and from an investor point of view has tangible product in front of him to make a decision. This could be extended to more well defined art forms like music etc.. Where as if you are a first time director, you probably just have a vision to sell which from an investor point of view will not hold as much of an interest, if the director has no prior work to prove his mettle. RGV is an exception when he became a director without really assisting somebody or contributing anything worthwhile in the field before jumping in. Wonder if he created any illusionist precedent to some youngsters, when he says all one needs to become a director is to have a fire in the belly to tell a story and a clear vision to execute. He may well be right, but if one is not as street smart as him, chances are that he won’t be able to get too far with just those qualifications. For others..it is go begging for work as ADs, assistant writers, DOP assistansts, get to know the industry from with in, develop contacts..and do the usual grind to make a film. Or tap your rich uncle, mortgage your house/career and start filming.
“At present filmmaking is depedent too much on people controlling filmworld because of their money power and distribution channel.”
I am afraid, it will remain so for foreseeable future. Indian Indie cinema I am afraid has been stigmatized as art/dark/boring cinema in the popular mind set and a lot of it has to do with the “parallel cinema” of 80s which drew solid lines between mainstream and art cinema. IMHO, for the Indian Indie cinema to be successful we need to build a geologically concentrated viewer base around that type of cinema so that investors can recover their money with 50-75 prints. In order to build this base, we need a “Khosla Ka Ghosla” “Oye Lucky Lucky Oye” and then a “Gulaal”. Entertainment first…enlightenment can wait.
On the other hand, as an end consumer I don’t care whether the cinema is indie or from a big production house. I believe Imtiaz Ali, Shimit Amin, Sriram Raghavan have all made superbly entertaining and sensible movies without humongous budgets and I would watch the next movie from them without caring about who is producing them. These are the directors who can give Indie movies a boost should they go down that route. AK on the other hand has built a base far less populous; dumbing down his content and tone a little, in exchange for expanding his base would only help him reach farther and help him in his Indie movement in the long run. “X Rated Emocional Atyachaar” while I personally enjoyed it, is definitely not the way to go! I have digressed so much already..but what the heck, no discussion on PFC could be complete with bringing in AK :-)
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