Stop cribbing & start writing…the contest is here….
….thats what i told myself. I am also struggling with my words these days. Like me, i know so many who want to write. And the keyword is “want” and not “write”. Because we are more concerned about why, whom, what, where,how, for whom ? Enough.
Check out the contest “Pen Uthao Bollywood Hilao”
what it is about ?
I can walk stories, I can talk stories, I can write stories!
Pick up that pen or sit at the computer and let your fingers fly on that keyboard. The story should be in English or Hindi. Could be any story, don’t worry. Love story, crime story, children’s story, political story, musical, courtroom drama. Art house, Masala or somewhere in between. Anything’s fine as long as the story’s good, and can be made into a great film. Would you like to see your story as a big film watched by the whole world?
Short / long ? Story / screenplay / dialogues ?
The submitted stories should be 1000 words (3 pages) to 3000 words (10 pages) long. All stories should be typed in a font size of at least 12 and should have a beginning, middle and an end. (The main characters should be briefly defined during the course of the story.) The story, along with the duly filled registration form should be submitted to the Mirchi Movies office in Mumbai.
Judges and prize money ?
All submitted stories will be reviewed by Mirchi Movies’ audit process. The top 50 stories will be handed over to a panel of esteemed judges including Boman Irani, Aziz Mirza (Director- Chalte Chalte, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, Yes Boss, etc.), Kamlesh Pandey (Writer- Rang De Basanti, Tezaab, Chaal Baaz etc.). Based on your talent, the three best stories will be awarded 10 lakhs, 5 lakhs and 3 lakhs rupees respectively, while the next 25 best stories will be given 5000/- rupees each, as consolation prizes. A select number of top stories would be developed into feature films, with the writer getting due credits in the respective film.
Last date of submission is may 12th, 2008 and results will be announced by June 2008.
Forms can be downloaded from here
Also, a friendly suggestion….its better that you get your script registered first and then send it for the contest.
And those of you who want to start somehow by rolling the camera, check out www.filmaka.in. They have contest for short films (1 to 3min)
every month. A topic is given and you are supposed to make a short film on that topic.
Btw, is anyone following the Gateway on sony pix ? I am. Thats the only stuff that i watch on tv. Its nowhere compared to On The Lot that used to be on Star World but am happy that someone thought about doing it. A friend send me the link of a short film in which he has acted. The task given was crowd management and it was one of the submission by a filmmaker that week.
Here is the link to some of the other shorts. Missed the episode this week. I think they are down to final four or five filmmakers now. Waiting eagerly to know who wins it finally.
So, things are not that bad. Lets try.
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Tags: contest, filmaka, gateway, short films, writing scripts
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
The title PNU, you hit the nail hard man!
Why is language a restriction:-?… I mean what is one supposed to do if he/she has his script in English… get lost I guess!
do check rules n regulations..not very promising
Plz tell me… how one can register his story before submitting it to mirchi office. As u have given suggestion to do the same.Plz help me out.
Thanks for the info phoenixnu, and also for the advice to get the story registered.
The FWA should consider accepting scripts online for registration. It’ll help out of towners like me.
All you writers out there- wanna brush up your writing skills?
Participate in the sunday 100 contest regularly.
Arun,…u from MSM ?
No,PLAYBACK, not MSM but from TAFS.
Gateway is sick…they had so many films on On The lot every week- and of different genres…here you have a teaser in one episode, then a single scene from the film in the next, then the film- it’s just a short film after all- GROAN. So much build up for nothing.
but stories ll becum properies of mirchi movies:-h[-x
this way they ll collect 100s of stories…
very chalu
hi, good to know someone here is following Gateway, any feedback,good, bad and ugly,would be most welcome.I was used to it anyways while I was there till final 6.So bring it on..
these are the biggest scams in the industry …wheres the transperency ..th eterms and conditions are ambigous enough to cheat the writer ..besides who knows how many submissions , who submitted what ..you get a good idea and there you are work around it and make a film . if FWA means business it shud put a lid on such competitions …or get some transperency there …as krishn above pointed out ..they get 100’s stories .
gayatri i watched the episodede where you were elminated , an di had watched one earlier episode where you were teamed with someone who you did not get along with ..and i really thought you were the culprit ..but when i watched your solo work , i was pleasantly surprised ..you did a good job and your one scene was amongst the best of the lot that day ….
Well…I am too sceptical about these ‘con’tests to really think they are any hope to us newbies. I think there is far more ‘they’ can squeeze/gain from us than we can from these contests.
I can still see that film-making contests we dont have much to lose but it gets my gall as to how these script/screenplay contests stand to gain from us despite everything. Yes, despite the ‘registration’ and everything.
Maybe I am too sceptical but then I’ve NEVER ever trusted corporates and the media so…
Thanks Sags, i was simply waiting to prove myself on my own.It helped to get positive feedback from the most experienced judges like Mahesh Bhatt and Sudhir Misra.
Fatima, I agree with you, at least in filmmaking contests you get to make your own shorts but giving scripts away for people who are making their free script banks,is just not worth it.If you have a good script,nothing can stop a producer from backing you.
@gayatri
Script bank?? Mirchi Movies is doing this thing to build up their script bank? Are you sure? They are promising around Rs 19.25 lakh total to 28 winners (10, 5, 3 lakhs for first three winners; Rs 5000 each to 25 winners of consolation prizes).
This 25 consolation prizes concept looks fishy to me. Suppose they decide to make a movie from one of the consolation prize stories. They would just be paying 5000 bucks for it!
Their terms and conditions form reads like a horror script, with Mirchi Movies looking like a blood-sucking vampire. It almost seems as if they are doing a favour to the Indian people by organising the contest!
If any Mirchi official is reading this, please clear the air.
Gateway Rocks…
I couldn’t watch “On the Lot” though. Any second seasons coming??
BTW, Gateway has a lesser budget than On the lot so they can’t make a lot of films. And also…They made a film per episode in the starting episodes.
@Gayatri: I liked the 30 people crowd film by you and david…Deserved better reviews.
I just love Bejoy and Vikram…They are way better than anyone else in the show. I don’t like Prashant from his first film…But he has done good camera work in the first few films of his and Vikram’s…
My prediction is for Vikram to win…Simply because Bejoy can be polished a bit more.
And Vikram’s entry film was way better than bejoy’s.
@rocky
”This 25 consolation prizes concept looks fishy to me. Suppose they decide to make a movie from one of the consolation prize stories. They would just be paying 5000 bucks for it!”
This is true bro, officially confirmed . Mirchi may change this next year but for this yr its fixed. they’ll own copyright for consolation prize stories too. so think hard before sending your great story, you may end up losing it for a mere Rupees 5000. Exploitation? You bet. any legal redressal possible? no idea.
Mirchi Movies Story Hunt— anybody got any idea when they are going to announce the results? First it was June, then got extended to August, now this month too has passed with no results on Mirchi Movies website.
No Idea Raunak, Infact I even called up their office, but could not reach anyone. Do let me know in case you find anything about it.
Hi Guys,
I did not know where to mail you guys. I had just called up the Mirchimovies corporate office, was trying to reach them since almost 3 weeks to know the status of result and used to get the same answer everytime “Kal phone karo, abhi sab office mein nahi hai / meeting mein hai / blah blah” …… Today finally when I called up the operator told me that the contest has been cancelled and on my asking if I can talk to anyone about this, he was like “sab meeting mein hai kal 10 baje phone karo” .
Really angry on the way this is handled, I don’t think my efforts to writing a story should be wasted for these people. I want to get my copy and my signed form back.
Do let me know if anyone of you plan for similar reaction.
regards,
Jay
its a big fraud.v hav a chance to loss our stories.hav to organise together at first n then to take steps.its really a daylight fraud.always beware mirchi’s,kamlesh pandeys,mirza etc forthcomings.join orkut community tht had created in the name mirchi fraud story hunt.it help to co-ordinate each other.its better to move grouply than individualy against these corporate rackets
I am also a victim of the same fraud. I had waited till Sept. Later I was told it has been cancelled and then I left hope. If anybody’s story gets adapted into any film, please do comment here so that we can see what action can be taken. I had written to various news channels but no one responded.
Guys my story has been copied!
We went and saw Rab ne banadi jodi yesterday. As I had already imagined, this had lot of similarities with one of my stories. This is one of the two stories that I had sent to Mirchi movies in May this year. Somehow I feel that concepts of my story have been lifted. I know there is no direct link between Mirchi movies and Yash Raj films. But there is every possibility of someone at the MML office selling off the story to someone at YRF for some small amount. The striking similarities:
1. Dance reality show vs Dance competition
2. Husband trying to prove that he loves his wife not by words but by deeds
3. Call centre employee vs Electricity company employee
4. “Thank you for calling Nissan, my name is Lijo….” vs “Punjab Power, lighting up your lives. This is Surinder Sahni”
5. Lijo having an infatuation before marriage vs Taani having a lover who dies before marriage
The only thing in addition to my story is Surinder playing the guise of Raj to impress his wife. And this is the only part that is not so digestable. How can one just shave off his moustache and gel his hair and become a person that even his own wife cannot make out? I know in countries like the US we could sue both YRF and MML on the basis of doubt and even the fees of the lawyers would have been on a commission basis. I don’t think that could be possible here. But if there are any lawyers who would like to take up this case(purely on commission basis, no fees), I am ready to give all proofs of the story being my original work, proof that I had courired it to MML office. My original story is available at http://vizcreations.com/index.php?item=Blog&blogArticle=Kya%20tum%20mujhse%20pyaar%20karte%20ho.
Rajiv