Of Smoking Joe ,No, Po, Dominoes And Film Promos
What’s common between Laaga Chunri Mein Daag (LCMD) and No Smoking (NS)..
One could say there could be no commonality whatsoever..One is proverbial chalk and another a cheese..One represents the established order and another rebels against it..One is power-centric and the other, well,ah-ahem, ego-centric..One is so stained that any cleansing is ruled out..Another is exception to the rule that you can’t have smoke without fire..One has all the brazen motives and other all the bizarre metaphors.. One has all the clichés and another has all the confusion..
But one thing glaringly stands out and what these films could not stand is the box office test..There was hardly any initial..Both opened to miserly 10-15% collections at many centres..And there is no chance of Bheja-Fry or Khosla Ka Ghosla happening to these films..It means they are box-office duds..In distributors parlance they are non-starters and cannot be revived with mouth publicity..
I am not here to go into the merits or demerits of the films per se..Enough has been written on both..My focus is on the blame-game of these much awaited films..And sifting through all the material written one thing was conspicuous that in both the films publicity and its most visible symbol—Promos were labelled as the major culprit..
It was really amusing to know the varied reactions..For LCMD it was said the film flopped because the promos gave away the story..The vehement reaction of one of the viewer was : Boss, the moment Rani Mukherjee uttered ‘Hai, I am Natasha, I knew what was the story line and the charm was over’..It was going to be an old wine in not too new a bottle..
For NS people had this to say : Boss, couldn’t understand what the promos wanted to say..you couldn’t make out what the story was..It was all a smokescreen..It was going to be too exotic for taste..
All these trade- pundits and cinephiles also suggested that these movies were not marketed properly..They did not hit the right target audience..What in marketing jargon will be called positioning was missing..(Like they have done in pizza market..Dominoes and Smoking Joe have different perceptions in the mind of consumers)..For LCMD marketing and publicity was a blitz..For NS marketing and publicity was in bits..LCMD was too mass to be a class apart..NS is too classy for the masses..
LCMD was supposed to be about woman’s plight but its ilk could not stand its sight..NS was supposed to be about man’s fight against the might but turned out to be in no-man’s land.And promos could not bring out this gist.
Poor promo-makers !They are a harried lot..How to cut a promo that clicks and hits the bull’s eye..Everytime they come up with something they encounter first NO from the director..If he gives GO signal then a bigger NO comes from the producer..Their plight is understandable..Too much No, No, and they don’t know what to do..
A friend of mine suggested to give them training in DeBono’s PO..That will excite them, expand their horizons, make them think out of the box,provoke them to make bizarre and weird associations and get their creative juices flowing..Not a bad idea.
But another friend has a different take on this whole promo business..He strongly believes promo-conceivers and makers can’t do anything if the material in their hands is lousy.. What they say in a hindi proverb ‘Boya perh babul ka toh aam kaise hon’..At the moment I don’t know its appropriate English translation..But I side with him..
LCMD and NS are just representative of a deeper malaise..You can’t make a dead man walk..Similarly all the gimmickry, marketing and item numbers in a promo can’t wash away the stains, disperse the smoke or make an item out of a thanda film..
As they say if you sow wind, you will reap whirlwind. Whoooossshhh!
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
So in effect you are saying that both are dead turkey in so many words.
Agree with you completely. Promos make a lot of difference and both these movies have somehow faltered in it. Promos of NS should somehow carry the fact that the whole movie is a metaphor, everything in the movie carries a different and a bigger meaning. I mean the movie is not at all about smoking (correct me if I am wrong) but promos don’t seem to say so.
That too based on the quote “boya per babool ka aam kahan se hoi”. No analysis nothing, simply based on the fact that both were non starters. Ha ha… In every new article on NS, people coming up with innovative examples and logic to justify liking-disliking NS…. This is the first film which has generated so much positive/negative vibes in PFC.
Krysh,
I dont agree.. If a film has a “specific target audience” it always reaches that… The promo is responsible in creating the “other” audience of the film… Whoever loved NS, would have seen NS no matter had there been any promo or not.. If I had to see HKA, did I cared to watch the promo? as I said earlier I would always prefer 10000 people seeing it and 8000 disapproving it or making negative remarks, shouting against the film rather than only 2000 people seeing it and appreciating… You have to reach the audience and you have to reach even the ones who is against the kind of your cinema.. Rejection without seeing is a bigger offense that showing disappointment after actually seeing it..
I think you have a good point there. I saw LCMD’s promos and thoght man no way I’m going to waste Rs.200-300 on that movie.
Promos sell your movie,NS makers realised John abs have higher draw than anurag’s angst against the system, and frankly i would be very interested to see rani playing a slut
I think you guys are getting it all wrong here. All movies have an audience. Ex: bhojpuri movies..none of us in our right mind would see those movies..but they click..do well..bring in money for their producers. So, what is the malaise!
“No Smoking” should have had a elite release and then become the subject of discussion over ciggies and chai in chosen metros..instead of the ridicule that it faces everyday now..also, I don’t know what AK was thinking, but he should have stuck to Kay Kay his original choice…a movie with such acute physicalities and moments needed a lot of intensity. Then, this Kay kay starrer could have been hawked in premier niche cinema markets in Europe and the Far East…A slew of releases in different world territories with Director discussions and such would have made hay for this film. Maybe, they are still doing it. I do not doubt Vishal’s intellect at all.
The promos in NS are made to suit thinking tastes..not simple tastes..then, to accommodate “Phoonk de” stepped in..then…….
In all, a sporadic Bhaja Fry (which was a comedy..and that is why scored) or a Khosla ka Ghosla (again same reasons)..serious art cinema has still to take hold in India. In the 70’s such movies were made because of an institution called NFDC!!
I think the whole promo/build-up of “No Smoking” was a bit flawed….i remember at one point the media painting this as an anti-smoking film….or a film against chain smokers….where did that come from? definitely the producers/directors/publicists didn’t give them the right idea about the movie……the same thing happened with Manorama…..you have to educate your audience….the cinephiles will always queue up for NS but their stock is limited….to appeal to a greater audience you have to reach out to them…..tell them what you want to show….tell them about the genre….they would listen….instead throwing in a bipasha basu song and dance number and a bare bodies shot of John….that’s not good “marketing”….
Two of my friends, who watched NS.
One (Watched it on Friday, he liked Black Friday and was looking forward for this one): Yaar, kya movie banayi hai, kuchh samajh me hi nahi aaya. No Smoking to chhodo, interval me hi 2 cigg pi gaya main.
Two (Watched it after talking to me and I clearly told him the movie is not about smoking, it’s all metaphor, this guy hasn’t seen BF and was not interested in watching NS either, just watched it cause I insisted): Boss, kya movie banayi hai. Maza aa gaya. ye aajkal ki faltu movies se kahin acchi hai. sala bade dino baad kisi movie me dimag lagana pada. Puri nahi chamaki, but i enjoyed it.
Cearly both of them didn’t understand the movie completely, but Two knew what to expect and One didn’t, that is why the difference in reaction.
Agree with you Indraneel, KK would have been a far better choice, anyways, John’s presence is not helping the movie at box office (that was the intention, i guess). But I admire Anurag for making John act, he is the first director, who have been able to achieve that.
What if there is an isolated case wherein the person comes in to watch the NS item number and ends up liking the film instead. Probably awed by it. Since NS may not be doing well at the BO level( which i assume), we hold its marketing responsible for it. Had things been different, our conclusions would have been different too.
Sourav, that would be very unlikely, because someone who goes to watch NS because of the item number, has some expectations in his mind, which the movie will not be able to fulfill. In that case most of such audience will be disappointed by the movie (with some exceptions may be).
SmokerJoe,That is what precisely has happened..even before the movie started I saw families with loads of popcorn entering into the hall…I was dreading the consequences and simultaneously sniggering.I guess Anurag obviously had an inkling as to what the reactions would be. Hence his documented views in one of the posts on the penultimate/ultimate day.
I don’t think Anurag had very big role in promo design.
If I was to make the promo of NS, I would have picked following scenes,
1. Where K’s soul is disappearing into smoke
2. Where Abbas’ finger reappears
3. Where manhole opens up in and a black man appears with a cellphone
This might have given a fair idea of what to expect.
I doubt it would have given any “fair” idea per se…but expect the unexpected kinds.Probably it is not your regular “off the shelf” movie.
Can’t the direct cut the promo? Do you think the Bhansalis of the world allow any Tom, Dick or Jerry to cut the promo of their films?
I think we are all missin the point here… true a promo is a capsule for sellin a movie but it DOES NOT differentiate between an existing and a broader market… once its out on da screens it simply caters to one and all
plus, the point of the discussion was how much of a film do you give away in a promo??? i think krysh has done a fantastic job with the examples as both the movies were not only different in their content but also its representation.. one gave away too much while one held back everything…
also can we please refrain on diggin potshots at the actors??? though they may seem funny (not) they arnt really helpin the discussion…
But one of the problems that i feel promos do cause is over selling… ROCK ON for example, for some (including me)seemed like an avant garde film when we saw the trailer… the expectation was so high that it actually fell short on the expectation level… though it managed to be a commercial success (w/c can be attributed to other factors as well)…
Have you guys seen the new Arjuna trailer??? i think its fantastic.. not just coz it has fantastic graphics but also coz it highlights positive aspects of the film like attention to detail and effects, gives an into to the story yet doesnt give anything away….