FICCI FRAMES 2013: Strong story still key to film's success

The second day of FICCI 2013 saw an interesting session which highlighted the foundation and stronghold of all entertainment content may it be the story or the script with writers who are prolific and stakeholders who need to translate their content into compelling images. The panel included Jerry Pinto, Writer; Rohan Sippy, Film-maker; Vijay Singh, Film-maker & Author; Rajshree Ojha, Film Director & Story Writer; Manish Gupta, Screenwriter and Samit Basu, Writer.

Giving a gist about the scenario of Indian cinema in terms of scripts and concepts, Samit Basu opined that in terms of stories and concepts Indian industry has been doing quite well. Rajshree Ojha here expressed that what makes the difference is how one portrays his/her idea or concept in terms of story. She believed that execution is what matters. Kamal Jain opined that stories should have entertainment quotient without which there will be no business in it. The content has to be strong and attractive.

Stressing upon the fact that today people do not want to read stories but want a narration, Manish Gupta said that, “Yes of course with the changing mindset and technology audiences today have moved ahead of reading stories that have no narration.”

Jerry Pinto explaining the scenario of Indian film stars and cinema said that once the stars start imagining themselves as the most important quotient of the story, the actual story dies there and then. What he meant here was the fact that today more than stories and concepts, films focus on the ‘stardom’ quotient. He says, “the actual art of portraying a character of the story is going down day by day, what has left is the whole and sole vision of 100 crores weekend.”

On this, Vijay Singh opined that the vision of the film makers is how to make an Rs 100 crores movie an Rs 1000 crores one. The art of writing concepts is been killed because of the monetary vision. He believes that there is disrespect for the writers. The makers cannot look beyond the power of stars. He strongly believes that what is most important is the investment factor. By ‘investment’ Singh meant investment in terms of talent, time, money and creativity. “The idea generated should be different and not on the lines of what others must have done,” he adds.

Speaking about the respect given to the writers; Jerry simply compared Hollywood and Bollywood; wherein he stated that in foreign countries writers are given a certain amount space in terms of expressing their creativity and ideology but here in India there is a lack in terms of investing in good writers. He said, “People have forgotten the role of writers and writers have themselves forgotten the art of expressing.”

Talking about the creativity and support, Manish made a point saying that no matter what budget a film may have, if the story is strong and creative it gets all the required support. Small budgeted movies like Vicky Donor etc were supported quite well. It’s not that there is a dearth of talent in our industry. The consumer mind set has changed totally. Citing a very simple example, he said that if we take the recent example; Zila Ghaziabad and Kai Po Che released together but despite have a ‘big star factor’ Zila Ghaziabad did pretty less than Kai Po Che in the very first weekend. What Manish wanted to convey through this was the fact that the consumer’s demand are changing and most importantly their taste of movies and concepts are changing.

Contradicting the point of power of star holding no more importance, Manish stressed upon the fact that the power of big star is still relevant. He says, “The movie Vicky Donor was made two years back but just because of no ‘power of star’ they were not getting distributors but when John Abraham decided to produce it things went well. So the fact is clear.”

Manish while concluding said that it is a fact that writing is not a very lucrative career to be in. it needs a lot of creativity and patience. He opined that the writer is taken for granted but when he becomes a director he is taken seriously. He says, “The writers are not given due respect these days and are also paid badly. Writing is a good way to form an identity but it is not good as a career.”