To Write or Not To Write !
iView Author:
SRINIWAS N (Mumbai, India)
Email :
Srinivasn77 [at] gmail [dot] com
To Write or Not To Write
I was at a friend’s office a few days back and we were just chatting about films and politics. He then tells me that he is looking for a new office boy as the old one quit suddenly. He was expecting one guy to come in a few minutes. As expected, a man in late twenties entered the office and my friend started interviewing him.
Friend: Kahan tak padein ho?
Office Boy (Applicant): Saab dusvi…
Friend: Experience kya hain?
Office Boy: Saab, pehle town mein Jagan courier service mein 3 saal tha aur uske baad vikhroli mein ek office mein kiya…
Friend: Kaam sab karoge?
Office Boy: Sab kaam aata hain saab..Bank ka kaam dekhta hu, office saaf karne ka aur chai wai banatha hu….
Friend: English padthe ho?
Office Boy: thoda thoda aata hain saab…
Friend: Tujhe mera dost Arjun ne bheja na?
Office Boy: Haan saab….
Friend: Teekh hain, Subah 8 baje aaneka aur shaam 8 tak office mein rahne ka…kabhi kabhi late bhi hoga…film company mein aisa hi hota hain…
Office Boy: Pata hain saab…
Friend: Teekh hain…teen hazaar pagaar milega…
Well, listening to this conversation made me think about the experience you need to get any job anywhere and that’s what made me write this post. I then thought about the film industry and the various jobs people do here.
To become a lightman, you need to have basic knowledge about lights etc. You also need to become a member of a union which is again a costly process.
Same thing for set department, costume department, make up department, direction department, musicians, editing assistants etc. All these jobs require some technical skills and experience and also union regulations. I was surprised to find out the membership charges of junior artiste association. It seems there is a big waiting list there…
You cannot work on a film set for any of the above departments if you don’t have valid union membership.
Then I thought about what I do….I am a writer…Qualifications? Bullshitting…Experience? Bullshitting…Membership? No one cares…Unlike in the west, screen writing is still not learnt or taken seriously. I came across some material used by film institutes in India regarding screen writing and it actually does not look at the bigger picture.
It’s kind of a difficult situation, people argue that you cannot learn creativity but born with it but once you have the “talent”, you can fine tune it by learning the technique. So all these hundreds of graduates of script writing schools have the “talent”?
Well, I keep meeting a lot of people in Mumbai and when they tell me they are writers, I suppress my laughter. How do people become writers? I wondered about this a lot. Journalists who were writing useless news feel it is their birth right to become a screenplay writer and they actually flaunt their journalistic experience around…”You know I used to work for Times of India and was the senior reporter there before the film world needed my writing skills”!
Some people are too lazy to learn any other craft. So What is the easiest thing to do when you enter a film office for work? “Hi I am a writer…I have great stories!”…Well, your auto rickshaw driver has great stories to tell too!
But the real test for all these writers is when they actually start writing the screenplay. Everyone has stories to tell, but how to turn that story into a screenplay?
Someone asked me why did I become a writer? Well, I learnt cinematography, worked in the direction department, so it felt totally natural to write in the process of becoming a director.
I learnt the technical side of the camera, lights etc. I learnt the practical side of direction working as an assistant director, now I need to understand the mental side of being a director by working with other directors on various subjects as a writer.
Once I approached a very big producer with one subject. He said bull shit. Does not work…(By the way, these are the exact words he used)
Well, after a few days, I was introduced to this big hero by a friend of mine who liked this story. I immediately went back to this producer again and this time, he was interested when he found out the hero liked it. While talking to the hero, the producer was praising the subject to the sky.
Everyone in the industry is an expert on scripts, from the producer to the office boy. When you are talking to some directors and producers, they actually give you a complex that they are totally somewhere else above with their intelligent talk on movies, how they cut your story down to size and pass a judgement immediately. They make you feel like shit. You feel so tempted to remind them the fate of their previous flop films and what happened to their knowledge then but you control your impulses.
I personally feel that you need tremendous amount of general knowledge, awareness of various issues and connection with the common man and importantly, intelligence to bring a story into life.
Now there is another challenge for the regular writers is this new breed, the female writer. With better assets and better communication skills, she has easier access to people who make decisions. Whether you agree or not, whether you believe it or not, most directors and producers are more happy talking to a female writer than a male writer. ha ha! Completely true! (I also want to say that I am not generalizing here and have great respect for some female writers who are really intelligent).
Well, being a writer is the most easiest and also the most toughest. It all depends on to what extent your bullshitting works. Again, it all depends on your network and being at the right place at the right time. All the best to all the writers over there.
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
@Sriniwas Babu,
interesting post. Sheds light on need of being exposed to various factes of film making to write a good film.
Have you actually been successful in convincing some star or producer or director on any of your script?
Hi RK, thanks for your comment. Well, I am right now involved in writing 3 scripts which are in the various stages of production. 2 of my scripts have been made into films and are ready for release.
Nothing big to talk about about the first 2 films star cast and production wise but they are 2 cr plus budget movies but the one I am involved right now are made by some established makers so I am just waiting for these to take off.
It was not easy though….By the way RK, All the best on your film.
Sriniwas,
as a female writer/wannabe director….it is not enough to have ‘assets and access’.
i may choose NOT to use those. there are still a few women left who have integrity
we are plagued by the same insecurities, same sense of helplessness and absolute despair that accompanies your writings.
i guess the best way to become a ‘writer’ is to Write, Right?
Kavita, as I said…I was not generalizing
…I personally know many intelligent female writers. I am talking about some who take unfair advantage of their gender. I met a few of them here in Mumbai and I was talking about them.
At the same time,, I have to tell you that for a woman, it is much much tougher with every man trying to hit on you. It takes a lot of strength to survive in the industry in spite of everyone trying to look at you as a piece of meat. I salute those women but as there are two sides to a coin, it’s just a few women who are actually making everyone think negatively about women in the industry…
As I mentioned, I did not generalize and forgive me if I unintentionally said anything wrong.
Farah khan said in a recent interview that she didn’t know why Bollywood doesn’t have good writers.
Hello! if Bollywood is not going to respect writers then obviously they are going to be hard to find.
As you mentioned rightly Srinivas, it takes an intelligent and hardworking person to write a proper screenplay and such people would generally have self respect and wouldn’t want to be treated like shit.
Sorry for going offtrack.Anybody here watched Sivajee Chandrabhushan’s Frozen? I think its a good film.
venkat
Hi Srinivas. thanx for the article. But i wanted to know more about what you have written. Felt as if I was dangling in the air for more.. but yes screenplay writing needs to taken seriously the same way as seriously its been spoken about.
But few people actually realise the gravity of the situation or make an effort to learn the craft..
and its extremely UNFAIR on your part, to say that its easier for a female writer to get through.. Its infact doubly difficult for a female.. the reasons you will possibly not understand unless you are a woman. So…..
I hope you write a part 2 of the article because there is so much you have left unsaid.. especially about screen writing, the reason some one becomes a screen writer, is it important to go to a film school to learn it, how important is it, is there a formula to it ,like syd field says… and above all how can you teach some one to paint.. its something that comes from within.. its like the labourer on the road side who breaks the rock, and has to keep at it for hours, or the secluded painter…or the isolated poet or a copywriter or … as they say Talent is built in isolation and character in world storm..
“Well, I keep meeting a lot of people in Mumbai and when they tell me they are writers, I suppress my laughter.”
Awesome. As a fellow ‘writer’ I applaud your ability to see humour in life. I wish you luck Mr Srinivas. Hope you write a big blockbuster and make it in life because you are special and the all stupid competition and female writers are all conspiring to deny you your greatness.
ha ha ha yeah right Kunal.. well said we are denying the right of mosquitoes
:d
I am a writer too …. wont say how I became one :w;
nice post and a welcome change
.. Thoda meri Laal hai but thats OK i guess :D
Dazed and confused – Good writers are there but who has the time to search for one??
Bollywood does not have good writers — Naa
Bollywood does not have access to good writers
or rather good writers dont have access to bollywood or
maybe there is something wrong with the good writer identification process :D
Tell farah khan start looking outside LAL MIRCHI entertainment. :D