One Step Forward Two Steps Back
Hi Folks,
While my prior post on the industry in Mumbai had a sense of optimism and professionalism, there is one MAJOR ISSUE with the workings of the Mumbai film industry and also the television world.
THE ISSUE OF BOUNCED CHECKS!!!
While technically this is a criminal offense in India, not sure if Bollywood is above – the – law, cause if it is not then a whole lot of the Bolly players are going to be having a new home, that of a penetentiary (jail)!! While never at the receiving end till date, my recent Mumbai trip was rife with stories of checks bouncing “en masse” and people being totally unapologetic about it…as in when they are informed that a check has bounced, rather nonchanlantly they mention “we’ll write another one”……yeah right!! ….you mean another bounced check!!!
The irony is that most of the people I met, who are corporated players in Bollywood say that the system is flush with funds, that there have never been a better time, that the economy is doing great, etc, etc……then why this issue!!! and that too with so much regularity!!!
Coupled with this is the issue of non payment or a delayed payment….seems remnicent of a lot of desi start up’s in Silicon Valley even in the Dot Com era…..Artists/Crew,e tc almost always have to make repeated calls to get paid, contracts, etc nothwithstanding.
Also refer this article which came out in Mid Day today:
http://www.samachar.com/showurl.php?regional=yes&rurl=http://www.mid-day.com/
The lower part which says Sanjay vs Sanjay.
While the article is not shocking..not any more at least after my few days in Mumbai, what is absolutely bewildering is Sanjay Gupta’s rather seemingly arrogant remark ““There are a lot of payments held up, but that is a routine in any company,”
Hello!! ding – ding !! tap – tap!! are we talking about being global players…..please can we exclude Mr Sanjay Gupta from any such global plans., with an attitude that borders on an “I am above it all( or so it seems from his above statement)”and instead of taking some accountabality he is placing ALL FILM COMPANIES, in the same category. He is indeed fortunate he is making this remark in local press, if this were to come in any international film based event, ALL, and I mean ALL of the global players would RUN away from Bollywood, thanks to a pea brained statement by a person who allegedly is a “voice” in Indian cinema.
I think the crux of the problem is that (a) Lack of open communication —if you don’t have the funds to make/complete the film…say so…..as opposed to misrepresenting that you have a miilion bucks or get realistic…..actually lack of open communication or lack of straight talk seems to be THE MAJOR ISSUE THE BOLLYWOOD FILM INDUSTRY has to overcome (getting there, but still a ways to go)
(b) A sea change in attitude!!! Start respecting the law of the land and the law and convention of normal business practices……at the end of the day you don’t win wars for us, you don’t invent anything which benefits our life…..all you do…..and I don’t care who…..is show up and roll the camera…….so that certainly does not give you the right to be “ABOVE IT ALL,” cause all you really do is much less important than 9 million other tasks in the world.
Sincerely,
Vivek “did I say our industry was second to none….clearly I was way off target” Kumar
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
Great to see this topic on PFC… I’ve always heard about “bounced checks” term being used everyday in Bollywood, though this is the first time someone is actually talking about this up front.
Hey Vivek
Been a victim of Non payment very often. The worst experience being my experience with RAMU. I was editing promos and theatrical for Bhoot. Was very enthusiastic as I admired his work. We had agreed to a certain amount. But after the work got over started the whole cycle of phone calls… and every time it was from my side. After nine months I was told to come and take my cheque… then they “requested” me to accept half the amount… i relented as I needed the money badly… was told to come back in the evening… the cheque was not ready because of some power cut… I finally never received the cheque.
I remember how Ramu used to interact wit me at the editing room and suddenly he started to look thru me in the Gym we used to work out( it has a very funny name “Barbarian”). i used to feel so tempted to tickle him when he used to lift up some heavy weight so that it came crashing on him…
I finally spoke out to the press about it. When they called him for his comment. He resorted ” what concern is that of yours”?
damn onir.. sorry to hear that.. am myself PFC’s resident ramu supporter.. but it’s when i hear him do shit like this (er.. amongst other things) that my respect for him drops.. sad to hear. jaisi karni waisi bharni man.. it’ll come back to bite him in the ass. i’m glad you’re being vocal about this incident.. PFC needs more name-taking, so we really know what the industry’s all about.
You see I can afford to take names because i am learning Kick boxing to counter his gym training…
)
Glad you mentioned Bhoot Onir. The “Bhoot” of Bhoot and my good friend Barkha Madan is whom I have shorlisted to play the “leading female actor” in my debut script. For 5 days Mumbai kept trying to drill “sense” into me by saying I should go for Priyaka, Lara, etc and for 5 days I told them I am looking for a director who will not only direct Barkha as the leading person but also Priyanshu as the leading guy….because I have lost my marbles and I love it when I do that, the net result is always good for me…Anyway am glad you are mentioning RGV, since for some reason unknown to me people think he is a genius!! Say hi to my family friend Sanjay Suri and hi to you from Silicon valley, from my good friend the Grovers (Arjun and Vaneet), who mentioned they know you well !!! Keep directing!!! and keep getting PAID .I passed Barbarian last week when I was navigating my way trhough Yari Road in the rain..
hey vivek
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Keep loosing your marbles… will keep you sane
Sanjay too says hi… yes the Grovers are friends… Hi to them from me
There was a famous contoversy in the Malayalm film industry called the “bounced cheque” controversy. It started when the Malayalam superstar Dileep filed a case against producer Dinesh Panicker for a bounced cheque. It was maybe the first time in the Malayalam film industry that an actor did so. The producer got arrested and the producer’s association, Kerala Film Chamber of Commerce, in return decided to ban Dileep from acting in films for two years and imposed a penalty of Rs 20 lakh. Later the ban was withdrawn.
Even I had been a victim of a non-payment issue. But I was the one who suffered more. I was forced to compromise and I was humiliated both in court, police station, etc. The people who had to pay me filed a false case against me and the only way that I could come out was compromise. I even decided to leave the film industry because of it. But never could. I am surviving and struggling in the industry.
:((:((
Great article Vivek, and Onir thanx for taking names! Well as far as bouncers are concerned we all know who they are, but everyone wants to come out clean.. why? because everyone is insecure! everyone wants to maintain their relationship, because everyone wants to keep working! So keep mum and work!
Earlier I used to collect bounce cheques, stare at it everynite… I wanted to take tham to the cops.. My friends laughed.. a single girl in Mumbai will do that.. well I wasn’t frightened, but I wanted to settle this amicably! So finally after relentlessly plodding I got my money [ two are still balance.. and I have lost my patience.. they can treat themselves to a few buffets in Marriot with that or buy themselves a birthday gift] The sadistic part is that these very people can go pubbing and zenzing and spend thousands, but can’t pay the very people who slog their asses for them.. How uncouth! How do they go and sleep in the night! Or Am I the english man in Newyork!
So its better not to work in Indian films and start doing adfilms and even better international productions, at least you get paid in dollars by the end of the week.. but the problem comes if you have a filmi keeda.. how long can one keep selling dettol soaps and nirma washing powders..!
So wrote a few films.. back to square ! Didn’t get paid for any of them except 1. A big corporate openly told me, “we can’t pay you till the time the film does business,” Fair enough.. I wasn’t even asking for humongous amount, but atleast pay so that a person can decently survive in this city! But who cares.. writers are treated like shit.. the very rawmaterial.. the very think that drives the car.. and worse most of them take shit…..they all work for free!!!some known ones as well…because its a passion! Does passion mean exploitation!
Its not a scenario of bounce cheques its ALSO a NO MONEY scenario!
Hey Suchita
I totally understand your angst. Every time I meet a producer they expect you to have a dozen ready scripts, of different genres, with different casting possibilities and varied budgets for them to choose from. Hello! Am I some script Bazaar, or are these scripts just going to come from nowhere. Today the tragedy of our industry is that most producers (corporate and individuals) still have not learnt that at the end of the value of the script. I am working with a new scriptwriter for a film I am working on. So I made sure he was paid a proper signing amount. After the first draft the producer calls me and asks” ab kya karein”… I told him that he should pay the next cheque as we have started working on the second draft. he says “what if no hero agrees to do this script”… I realized that we belonged to different planets. told him to clear the cheque and if the “target actor/star” says no. I will buy off the script because I believe in it. Finally the cheque was cleared. But I know I cannot keep doing this…. and it irritates me to see how people especially if they are new are treated…” you are giving him/her a break… so he/she should be grateful. They forget that no one is doing anyone a favor. I need a good script as much as a writer needs a director to realize it.
Absolutely Onir, and worse People think they are doing others a favour by employing them..since there is already a fish market here, so that should compensate for non payment.. what kind of thought process is that..
Yest nite I heard a good news though, YRF, just bought a writer’s bound script for 25lac..its a great news…. the trend should continue…and we need more trendsetters than exploiters…
And another worse thing is that, if you are related to some1 here… any which way, you are treated differently, you get all your payments cleared… you get to write and direct even though you don’t have any art of story telling…
But the scenario is changing..although slowly.. but I can see hope….
Onir: This is very brave of you to write clearly about RGV’s attitude. Unless people tell their stories, new people will be facing cheating by these so called big bosses of film industry.
But its strange that few of RGV’s camp walla ADs write on PFC and even Anurag Kashyap has worked for him and they never hinted about these things.
Do they wish to maintain RGV’s image in public?
Or is RGV selective about his bad behaviour also?
RGV runs factory and does not follow rules of running a factory. Law is really partial in India and it cant handle these powerful people.
and then its a truth of all times that if you dont work on their conditions, they will get many more who have made lines and many of them will do whatever they are told and on any conditions because they have gone to do business there. Survival somehow!
Or in reality also what RGV shows in his films, you need a SARKAR to handle him and his kind of guys. This is so pathetic scene.
It seems YASH Raj films atleast always give money to the people associated with their films. Atleast that ensures the survival of creative people in the city. If you have guts then you can make better films than what YRF makes.
Re: chance to newcomer, perhaps in this world
only a new prostitute is sold at high price otherwise newcomers are sold at no price. No doubt there will be some dirty minds in film industry who can take money from newcomers under the excuse they are giving chance to new comers.
Its just sick.
Onir: when you say
“But after the work got over started the whole cycle of phone calls
Hey Suchita
That is good news that YRF has bought a bound script for 25lacs…. but today some writers anyway command as much and more. The question is one is this person a new comer? And secondly was money spending on developing the script? We need production house to spend money on development of ideas, research and concepts. Some of the films form the YRF camp with as huge a budget for scripts were not necessarily good… but anyway that
Hey RK
I really do not care about camps. Never belonged to any and have always spoken my mind. I know that I am not a solitary case in terms of RGV. I am sure some people might have had good experience working with him. Would be unfair to say otherwise. I think every camp is selective in terms of behaviour. Depends on Power position. I am sure the way a new actor is treated there is not the way an established actor be treated. But I know of lots of Technicians who were not paid/ under paid…
Honestly speaking Ramu is one filmmaker I used to admire, for being different, for taking new pepople… but over the years from personal experience, experiences of colleagues and also very often from the kind of actor/actresses launched/ kind of films being made one felt disappointed…. but anyway that is not the point of discussion here.
Yeah Onir, am aware about that, bt I guess, that amount plus is paid to writers with a series of successful films behind them. This one is a fairly known person, more actor… Also yeah YRF with the kind of infrastructure they have can afford to spend more money on R N D …and they should.. and they can afford to.. but I don’t see them coming as pioneers of creating any thing other than their own set of safe films.. when the point is they can afford to… I see the history being made by individuals struggling to make their films… which would stand out on a larger scale…perhaps its good in a way!
Yes Suchita this is what I meant. 25 lacs being paid to someone like that is no big deal… Would a new comer with a better script get even 25% of that. I have doubts.
You know the other day when I read about the 1cr announcement by Mr. Ghai I was kind of amused. If you look at the kind of films that have come out of Mukta… even in the recent past ” good Boy Bad boy” one wonders who is gonna judge ” good script, bad script”… the answer is blowing in the wind…
Onir!
Thats very balanced approach.
Hierarchical order – we cant avoid in India in any profession. That has become a deeply rooted disease. Big small will remain there. Thats why Naseer saab was happy by seeing professional equality atmosphere at the sets of ExtraordinaryLegue……
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Surely many might have good experiences with RGV and accounts of many are known but hardly any bad experience is shared. And why only RGV, we are talking about many others. Because RGV is the known name occured in your comment so suddenly he has become matter of discussion. But this hiding of the facts always harm people because oppressors are never exposed and exploitation of newcomers is continued.
Coming back to bad experiences, unless they are shared and exposed, people will continue their bad deeds. Everybody fears bad name and in this internet era its bit easy to say truth.
Re: RGV, he has a great fan following everywhere including PFC also and not many will comment which goes against him. They will prefer silence as it always happens.
Who had written that poem :
“when they came for Zews, I remained silenet becasue I was not zew.
Then they came for protestants, I kept silence I was not a protestatnts
Then they came for Catholics, I maintained silence because I was not one of them
…
In last they came for me and there was nobody left to speak for me!
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This has been happeing and will be happening because we dont prefer to say, bad as bad.
Camps are reality of everywhere, no place is spared from this campbazi. Our social political atmosphere is conditioned by campbazi.
Even so called revolutionary opens gates of their revolutionary thoughts on selective matters only.
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That was very nice and inetresting point that, if money is given during the development stage or someone first has devoted years of his life and now YRF has purchased the script. This is also good but as you said if concept is good and appealing and producers hire and support writers during the development stage then it will be a far better step.
yes you are absolutely right, a newcomer with a better script won’t get anything….very true….and yeah the 1 cr announcement is the most hilarious thing that I have been reading about….but I don’t think anyone around is even remotely interested in it
RK
I totally agree with you that sometimes one has to decide enough is enough and speak up…. and the example you gave of the Nazi era is the best possible one.
“chance to newcomer, perhaps in this world
only a new prostitute is sold at high price otherwise newcomers are sold at no price.”
Excellent Lines RK ^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^
I heard the news about Mohanlal complaining about non-payment by RAMU’s FACTORY after the movie COMPANY had released. I thought it was a rare incident or a case of human error on part of FACTORY’s account staff.
But with Onir’s admission looks like its habitual. Every genuis has some weakness and looks like RAMU has some…
My respect for him was dwindling and one more reason here, to boost it.
Suchita/Onir and many others, sorry to hear about this.
Good to see everyone come alive, I have now come to realize that whenever I post I either invite everyone’s wrath or everyone’s good wishes….makes life exciting. Suchita B, I salute you, after I got to Mumbai this time and interacted extensively with folks, I do realize how hard it is for a single girl to make a life there, so kudos. While I have already cast for the leading actress, in case you would like to be involved in my “lost marbles” project (Onir thanks for the words of encouragement!! much appreciated) in any other form (other role or behind the scenes), do drop me a line. I would like to do my bit for the brave risk takers of this industry….while I don’t promise millions I do promise NO BOUNCED CHECK, STRIGHT TALK (good or bad) and IF PAYMENT IS DUE THEN A NET 30 DAY PAYMENT, cause way after the film is done and gone I have to look at myself in the mirror and feel good about who I am and that is what gives me the confidence to speak my mind…..mindlessness nothwithstanding!!!
Vivek,good u experienced the endemic disease first hand..but the people holding the purse strings in hindi film industry are made of skin thicker than rhino..
Suchita system seems to be changing but is an illusion..A newcomer being paid that kind of money for his brilliant script would be unheard of..My cynicism makes me take a viewpoint if that happens there will be some twist or hidden agenda or story behind it.
Onir, ur courage in naming RGV camp is creditable.There are so many who are scared to voice this exploitation of not being paid, or made to accept fifty percent of their dues et al, bcoz of losing a foothold whatsoever.
About development of scripts as property,it’s a distant dream here as of now..i had taken up this issue in one of my earlier posts 3A’s of Filmmaking.. The other day i had an interesting conversation with the General Secretary of IFWA(Indian Film Writers’ Association)Jalees Sherwani..He rued the fact that writing fraternity was to be blamed to a great extent for their exploitation..And he had many reasons and examples to support his view(those can be discussed some other time)..but what he suggested made sense..He said that writers will have to come on a united platform keeping their egos aside and fight for their rights..Like musicians have such strong unions and the stuntmens too…till that happens we can just keep grumbling and navigating individually as best as we can through treachrous paths to filmmaking in Mumbai.
RK your quoting the poem echoes somewhat the same sentiments.
And Vivek with your transparent approach,u r definitely going to do a good job on ur film because i firmly believe u need to be a good human being to bring alive emotions truly on the screen..wish u the best.
Great Article Vivek.
This whole payment issue makes me insane. I’m gonna write a article about the state of ADs in Bollywood soon. I totally agree with RK that all these commercial filmmakers like Karan Johar & YRF are great with payments. They really take care of their own. And most of the so called “good Filmmakers” I mean 99% of them are known for their exploitive nature. Name any great filmmaker & he has blood in his hands. I admire RGV a lot esp his earlier works. And him being the 1st guy who gave chances to so many newcomers. He did a lot of good for our industry. But his payment problems are legendary. I know people who have gone to FACTORY & vandalised the property in their drunken angst.
Few months back at IFFLA I met Nandita Das & she told me that she is trying to raise funds to direct a film & wants good ADs very badly. My 1st question was – Are you going to pay them what they deserve or you are also play the ‘poor arty director’ card? Yeah I asked her straight. She is a very very cool person. And that vibe from her probably encouraged me to be so honest with her. She promised to pay her ADs. And she aslo agreed how filmmakers exploit ADs in Bollywood. I hope she gets her funds & her ADs get paid. More power to people like her. BTW Nandita Das is half Oriya half Gujrati. She is NOT BENGALI.
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Last film – THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE(8/10)
Music – www.pandora.com
Vivek, thanx for your kind words, would def love to know more about your project..
Krysh, the person who got paid that kind of money wasn’t a newcomer.. he is a known actor and has a few films under his belt.. I believe that his contacts and his script both enabled him the amount of money and yeah of course his negotiation skils.
Mainak, can’t wait for your article 8-|
the post and comments made for an interesting read. As someoneone who is working in television and trying to move to Bombay in a couple of months, just to measure up “in how much water I stand”, this served as a big caution and what all to be wary about. Thanks a ton… Vivek, Onir, Suchita, RK=d>
Pankaj, thanx for thanking, and you better stop clapping or you will get tired:d