PROJEKT iVIEW : Mumbai Beckoning ???
iVIEW AUTHOR:
Pankaj Johar (New Delhi, India)
email:
pankaj.johar [at] gmail.com
It’s just last month that I came across “Passion For Cinema” and have been addicted to it ever since. But what is strange is that though I like to think that we have got our own little group of cine-fans and wanna-be film makers; no body had hit upon this site. This is a one of a kind community in India and i guess each one of the bloggers is doing a great work. Not to forget Oz, whose brain child this is.
I have got so many things to write and discuss about, but I decided to pick up a real life incident which one of my office colleagues faced. More so, because it is something which a lot of us here, sooner than later, are bound to come across in our lives. And it would require a very radical thinking.
Now, both of us work in one of the most reputed media organisations in Delhi (yeah, it’s true there aren’t many here, but still). Like so many others here, we are also working in the area of seeing our name in the director credits after a movie finishes off. And for that, the place to be in is obviously Mumbai. So one fine day this friend of mine decides that it’s time to resign and move to Bombay and pursue his dreams. working in a news organisation, he had built up enough contacts whom he could approach when there – so he thought. After spending the initial two weeks settling in, he started doing the rounds of various directors’ offices. Having approached atleast 15 offices and getting access to barely 4, is when the reality dawned on him. There were hundreds of equally talented people thronging these offices. Some had just entered their 20s and were willing to work for peanuts, just to get the hang of the real-time environment. No one was ready to pay him anywhere near the amount that he was expecting. Eventually he decided to work for a filmmaker at a fraction of salary that he used to get in Delhi. The work according to him was a big degradation since from being a creative director of television shows, he was now a second AD, taking orders from people he thought were far less competent. He really reached a low during this time, finally quitting after 2 months and now works with another production house churning out those crass saas-bahu sagas. I wonder what happened to his lectures of only doing quality work. He is now earning almost the same as in Delhi, but spending extra on food and lodging.
Here is where my question comes in. I have never believed in the route of working as an AD and then climbing your way up in the film industry. To me it makes more sense to save around 15-20 lacs and then make your own micro/low-budget film shooting it on 16mm maybe. This is particularly good for those who can write a good feature-length screenplay on their own and believe in it. I also don’t believe that you have to know all the technical stuff. That can be taken care of, if one can manage a good technical team. I have seen that being done on a regularly basis in the US and people in other countries including India have started following suit. In fact this way you can get to learn so much more since you are part of every process and you are your own boss – financial and otherwise. You just have to believe in your gut deep inside since the whole crew is looking up to you. If you have got it in you, you are bound to succeed. If you don’t then hey, what the heck? Atleast, you tried.
Am I living in a fantasy world or is something like this a possibility ???
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
Pankaj, there is no clear-cut answer to this. Amongst guys who made it straight without any AD route is Nagesh Kuknoor..Yes u need around that twenty lakhs plus for the kind of project you talk about. But to save twenty lakhs in India takes time. Maybe with the opening of an economy there is more money as paypackets. Still it will take couple of years to spare the money just as an investment in a high risk business environment.
And if someone has the balls to really take that risk and say after the movie is made and released and does not go anywhere ‘What the heck, at least i gave it a try’,fine-perfectly fine. And if it makes it to the bo and gets critical claim then of course it is fantastic.All said and done there are very few wannabe filmmakers who have either those kind of funds or guts..If you are from a film family yes then you know your career path anyway. Dad is there to fund your project. But Pankaj you may have seen these very guys are assisting all the big names and that too for peanuts. They dont need money. They need either credentials or just a time before they take the plunge. This has a negative fallout on the opportunities availbale to guys who want to learn the real time environment and earn both from assisting for a movie or two. For them it becomes really difficult. And for others who want to switch career paths like your friend, it is humiliating to be in such a scenario. So what to do..As i said there is no concrete solution. But as General Cariappa is reported to have commented,you can’t be a good general if you are not a good soldier’. I think experience of one or two movies as an assistant is not a waste. It really exposes you to lot of on-the-job occupational crisis and how to resolve them. It is kind of an experience gained in a simulator before you take off on your own. It is things learnt at others expense so that when you make your indie you know where the leakages could happen and how to control the budgets..It has less to do with creative side and more with administrative and management, but let me tell you awareness of both these can really help you in making some on-the-spur creative decisions when the need arises..You can live out your fantasy no doubt but assisting for a while even at dirt cheap wages will go a long way in managing your risks and the same crew that looks up to you will have more respect for you because they can sense that you are leading from the front.(of course in all this discussion your creative vision is not being questioned)
Fuck all that. Nothing really matters as long as you have a great script and a great tongue!
Write a brilliant script. It’s not enough if you think it is brilliant. Discuss your story first with people, if they are excited, then work on the screenplay. Make it tight and right! Then, meet some actors, not stars but atleast saleable actors like Irfan Khan, Shiney Ahuja’s(He anyway acts like a star but you know what I mean). Most of these will agree to do a project if you have a producer. Tell them you have one, who is out of the country but will need their verbal okay. They will be happy to give you their verbal okay if they like YOU and your script. (In that order)
Now, start meeting producers…and you don’t have to come to Mumbai to do that. Lot of moneybags are coming in these days from Delhi itself. Infact, being in your present company, you will be in a better position to impress those ghati producers. Invite them to your posh office a few times and make them sit in the conference room, take them to the post production rooms and just do the blitzkeritz. Then tell them you have the actors all ready to do your script.
Catch the next flight to Mumbai, and the first thing to be done is make sure the advance cheque reaches the actors. Once that is done, you are in. All this, while staying in Delhi. No need to shift.
And don’t go by the looks. Most of these loaded delhi producers look like production boys by appearance but trust me they are loaded. It does not take intelligence to become a producer, just some great family business or being a star secretary.
and if it is your first official entry to the Bombay. come when its raining..the feeling of vengeance will never let you back to the Delhi summer..~o)
Pankaj, As Krysh mentioned, no clear cut answers on this one. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But some of the following might help you decide what’s right for you.
You didn’t quite mention what it is you do at the production house in Delhi. Is it on the floor or at the office? Makes a bit of a difference in experience gained.
Don’t quite agree with Machchar that all you need is a good script and good tongue. Sure, you might even get to make a film. But a good film requires more than that. Otherwise the best films would be made by writers.
Personally, I never did the whole AD thing but then there was four years of film school and countless ad films before the feature happened. The experience of being on a film shoot is invaluable regardless of it being a student film or a commercial venture. Get some on-the-ground experience if you don’t have it already.
Talk to many filmmakers. Ask them about their big break. How did they get it. How relevant was their personal course. It can be difficult shifting to movies at a ‘mature’ age. I recently met this person, very smart, a senior brand manager at a multinational company who had quit his job to venture into directing. Unfortunately his film experience was zero. All I could offer him was an AD post low down on the pecking order. If he had wanted a job in production, his experience as a brand manager would have been somewhat relevant but in the Direction department it contributed nothing.
Ultimately, just go with your gut feel. You know when you’re ready. Just steel up for some hard knocks because nothing comes easy.
Good luck!
Navdeep ‘Manorama Six Feet’ Singh? how about a ‘Making Of’?
I had directed some ad films before I came to Mumbai. I wanted to see how the film industry works here and thought that with my experience I would get the work of an AD fast. But didn’t get. Everywhere they were asking if I had any experience as an AD. I said no but I have experience as a director. Didn’t want to go back to Kerala without getting what I wanted. Tried for 1 year. Worked in a call centre, quit that and then worked as an freelance editor, cameraman and then got a chance to AD in a film. I enjoyed the experience. I learned a lot things. I am now back to Kerala. But I don’t want to AD anyone anymore.
And yah there is no need to be an AD to direct a movie. But it helps.
Even if i am taking the baby steps of film making, i have thought about both the routes.
This is what i think :
Option 1) AD exp will add value BUT there is no point trying endless to get an AD job. Time is also very valueable, after all.
Say for me, i might wanna try for AD for 2/3 months, if i get it i will do one/two films as AD and then do my indie. But if AD doesn’t happen in first 3 months, i wouldn’t wanna waste any time. I will rather go n shoot my indie (of course assuming i have a script that i believe in and i have 15/20 lakhs).
Option 2) since (aasuming) it involves hard earned money (15-20 lakhs is no less for a middle class boy, not sure about you), i will write a script keeping limited location n characters n shoot it on HD with a very small crew. Acc to me, if you don’t have to pay for actors, locations n ppl willing to help you out (u will have to find some) , you can shoot your indie on HD in less than 5 lakhs. Now if your indie is really worth it it will get a 35 mm Blow up. And if the prod quality is mediocre you can still show it to producers n big actors they might be willing to spend now 2-3 crores for the same indie.. so basically i am saying spend 2-5 lakhs to make a pilot which is full fledged movie but shoot on SD/HD…
Sab paisa barbaad karne ka chakkar…There are thousands of people who spent their hard earned money on making shorts hoping it would make them big but are roaming the streets of Mumbai like zombies. One in 10,000 people actually would have had something positive coming out of his venture but I say it’s useless.
I met a guy recently who made a short film spending 4 lacs, hoping it would be selected somewhere and would make money and he would become famous. After one year of running around, he has come back to mother earth. He is so desperate, he says he is willing to sell the short even for 10,000 rupees but no one is willing to spend that too…
So bhailog, making shorts and indies all this hi-funda intellectual talk is useless. Get going, catch some producers or actors and then you can do something. Or just toil endlessly for years as an AD hoping to catch someone’s eyes. Put your money in fixed deposits, atleast do time ka khana milega.
Benjy,
So busy making it just don’t have the time right now for a ‘making of’.:”>
Well thanks for your encouraging comments Navdeep and Krysh. I agree that working as an AD comes with a lot of benefits. But following that route is OK if you are just out of college. Though I am working as a director on a couple of pilots (for a lifestyle channel, which a big media comglomerate is soon going to launch),I strongly believe that Films are a different world altogether. No amount of experience in TV can prepare you for FILMS. But what TV does teach you is how to work as a team, how to reach deadlines since ur show is on air every other week. I am still at an age where I can try out new things, I perhaps might take an assisting job if an opportunity comes along. But if there can be so many first timers making low budget indies without ever being an AD in Hollywood(where breaking into the industry is way tougher than in India), then why not here.
Machchar, I agree with a lot of what you’ve said but then I think you are living in a far too easy world. Do you know how many great scripts there are floating around?? For an outsider in Bollywood, more than anything it’s luck that counts. Everything has to click at the right time.
Hemant, making a pilot for 5 lac is still too high. I pilot can be made for under a lac but you either got to have good contacts or as Machchar said some star associated with it to have agood chance of converting it into a feature. As for shooting a feature on a hi-def and then blowing it up, well it’s posiibility provided you have showcased ur film at some international film festivals and it has garnered rave reviews if not awards. Only then can you possibly approach a distributor/producer.
Hey I told you to not to write any article, still you are not paying attention to it.
Stop writing!!!!!!!!!
:-?
well, i think nothing works in our industry better than a contact, no AD shady.. nothing.. you just need to have one good contact, of an actor or mr money bags.. Thats it your life is set.. And the best part about our industry is that even a watchman or a spot boy gets to make a movie if he knows an actor.. doesn’t matter what or how the movie is made.. so forget about every thing else, just try and make your movie with big actors, after that even if you make flop movies it won’t really matter your life is set after that. you make movies for the rest of your life.. do you know mr bacchan or srk.. or.. ? if not then get to know them.. trust me you life could become easier.. good luck
Navdeep free hote hi ek post yahaanpar banta hai…