What an Idea Sirjee! (Humour-The plight of a script writer)
I looked at my script again. A bracket here. Maybe the comma should be removed. Ok. Shit .I am fed up. These characters have aged in these five years. They look old and haggard after waiting in these files for so long. The online computer copy might just decide to commit hara-kiri. The CD disk copy will spawn a virus. Anything can happen. Everybody loves the story. Great! Wonderful! Such a film will be the first yaar. Sure hit. Keep your champagne bottle ready. Have you prepared your award speech yet? Any damn actor will give his right hand to do this role. Don’t blame me if they stand in line at your door. You will be an overnight celebrity after this –don’t forget us promise?
A gnawing pain attacked my insides again. I had been so committed to writing, re-writing, polishing and sharpening the character sketches that they all came alive in dreams and in nightmares. I began to think of new ideas and new twists I could add to the story. The words were checked and three editions of Thesaurus were consulted. I watched old movies and Hollywood movies till my eyes popped out. None resembled my plot even faintly. Mine was an original. Not copied from forgotten B grade Hollywood flicks. Not adapted from Russian novels. Pshaw. I sneered at those who cannot write an original story.
Look around guys! See the world changing in front of you. A hundred shades of emotions. Have the guts and spine to sit down and think you ….rats. Stop digging around, sniffing out rubbish and delivering garbage. You see a man on the road. Imagine his circumstances. Build a story around him and the woman next to you in the bus line. This is how they said one makes up a story. They? Who they? The teachers at the writing school. Observe. Imagine. Write. They said you could write about the louse in the hair-do of the woman in front of you. Write on the shiny bald pate of the old man selling vegetables. So I did. I wrote a story about the vegetables that grew on the man’s bald patch. You are the next Roald Dahl, they exclaimed. You are on the right path. Keep it up.
But see where I have ended up. A louse on a bald patch. I write a story. Everyone says, hey that’s a real filmi one. Make it into a script. We will show it around. I feverishly sit down and study how to write a screenplay. Bas? I can do that too. I am a visionary. I can see my film. I can feel the pace. I know how much light to be thrown on the heroine’s face when she dreams. The angles. The crane shot. Freeze. This has to be a trolley shot. Hand-held here for realism. The editor will have nothing to do. The director can blindly shoot from every page.
At least the Hollywood guys will evaluate it. Study it. Accept it. Or return it if you have sent a SASE. The mules here won’t even give a dekko. A star expects you, a poor writer, to spend for narration in a five-star hotel room. So many money bags. So many flops. So many side-lined. The entire industry depends on the writer but will neither respect nor pay him. We should all go on strike. See what they did in Hollywood. Brought them to their knees, na? That’s what these b*******.deserve.
Hello Anil? WHAT? HE wants to see me? Will he listen to the story? Ok. Ok. I know just to get a darshan means a lot. I shall bow and scrape and kiss his toes. Whatever.
Sir this is an original story. You producers are looking for original ideas, right? Here is one sir. You will be proud to make this film. Your factory directors will love it sir. Just ask them to sit for a narration sir. Sure hit sir. I have already registered it, .and don’t tell anyone, I have also posted one copy to myself, sir. We have to be sure of copyright and all that no?
Sir you won’t believe this. I have also written out a script screenplay in Hollywood format. It is ready for filming! I have character sketches, production notes for every scene, list of locations, list of characters, lyrics for the songs, dialogues in Hindi written in English script for Canadian actresses, in Tamil for southie actresses, and Urdu for our Pakistani debutantes. No pre-production problems sir. I have been working on this for five years sir. Research, study, facts background everything authentic.
Sir lets make a deal. You have to pay separately for writer, director, pre-production work, translator and screenplay writer? Yes? No? Arre sirr! I am one man army. I wear many hats. You pay for one. Only One! Fair? I will give you everything. You give me credit for story. That is important. Deal? Yes? Ok?
Ok I will come down even more. If you make profits on this film then you pay me. Come on. Just give me credit for the story. I can’t say more than this, can I?
Write something modern? For the multiplex? Do multiplexes have a different intellect? Their pockets are heavy so their brains are lighter? Hmm….so it is retro time. You want to go back to the swinging sixties? Dancing around trees, lost brothers/sisters, dying declaration….but, Sir this is 21st century. We have just reached where Hollywood touched a decade ago sir. Nowadays they are copying us sir, with musicals, using tabla sarangi and using antique stuff from Hyderabad bazaars.
You want a 13 year old girl loving 8 year old boy. Ok sir. She waits for him to grow up. Ok. He hates her and runs away from her. Ok. She sacrifices herself and gives blood donation to his wife? Ok. She becomes their ayah and the story ends on a happy note. Original sir! What an idea sirjee!
Salaam sir!
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
what a post sirjee! awesome! the plight of a writer.. uff!
hmmm … i dont whether to agree or disagree with it. i know people who belong to this category, but then i also know people who would not watch trash dished out on golden plate.
nice thought though
hmm….a very demoralising post for me who is just about to start.
But then truth is demoralising more often than not.
Seems like the time when writers get their due is still nowhere in sight…
production notes ready?
Scene-1
Dir-1 : “Abey! director tum ho ki main?”
Writer : ???
scene -2
Dir-2 : “Naam scriptse mera bateeja ka dal do”
Writer : “Sirji -woh kaise karoon. lika to maine na”
Dir-2 : ho – aisa hai kya? theek hai – poora script ko swedish main likh do – main Stockholm me shooting karrahaa hoon aur wahan ka ek item ko heroine banaarahaa hoon”
Writer: “sirjee – yeh to farmer suicide ka story hai – ?????”
Writer faints down….
ohh…what happened to my comment#2; sounds so lame because something got garbled :(
anyways…i was referring to the quote: “Do multiplexes have a different intellect? Their pockets are heavy so their brains are lighter?” … i don’t whether to agree or disagree with it. i know people who belong to this category, but then i also know people who would not watch trash dished out on golden plate.
Nice one! Keep on blogging…
Script is where the thing starts. Its the one who identifies a good one who will take it to execution. So if film makers pay big bucks to buy a book’s rights, they should do so to writers too.
Thanks to all the readers for their comments.The chasm between the writer and the powers to be are still long and deep. any ideas as to bring them closer?
Hey Indu,
WELL DONE!!! Hats off to you. This article is very powerful and thought provoking, for last 2 days it’s been on my mind
.Would love to discusses further can u mail me ur email id at abbu1985@gmail.com
Hope to hear from you soon !!!
Regards,
Abhishek Thapar
Magik &dazedand confused: Glad you liked it.
karmayodha &jibin; Don’t get demoralised . Every dog has its day, you know. Our time will come.Keep writing.!
Crazyrals: there is this new idea that that producers are aiming for the multiplex audience.I still dont know what they mean.
Vinay & Abhishek: Thanks. Sure we could talk about it.
Indu,
Is it really so bad in Mumbai? I’ve actually just finished a full screenplay and sent it to’someone I know’ in the industry.
There really should be a forum where screen-writers can meet ,team up and help each other…
This is so,so sad.
Hi Manoj, There is a Filmwriters Association in Mumbai where you could register your script. They are doing excellent work and are coming up with a detailed contract which protects the writer.I am glad that most readers have discerned the sad truth behind the humourous facade of the article.
hi Indu,
Haven’t heard from you, i have got something important to discuss and might be of interest to you as well. plz mail me ur id.
Abhishek
Indu,
I’ve read sample contract formats that producers in the UK Have to sign to work with screenplay writers. There’s apparently a certain minimum percentage of the films budget that they have to pay the writers for films/TV.( i may have followed a link from PFC, I don’t know.)
Aur idhar, the FWA-Mumbai web site itself is de-funct. ( Suna hai- RGV pays the grand sum of 50 k for each screenplay he produces.) What are writers from outside Mumbai supposed to do?
If someone who can possibly produce 3-4 ‘workable scripts’ every year decides to take a leap of faith; the chances of him being able to sustain himself+his family in Mumbai are zero.
I’m sure there are a LOT of people who can write good, original, film-able material if the industry had an organized system to support them, respect them, nurture them.
(Please let me know if its ok to e-mail you. I’d lost the thread of this post and it took me ags to find it again!)
Manoj.