FICCI Frames '10 Dairy: Problems facing the film industry article
As FICCI Frames 2010 drew to a close today, two issues remained predominant over the three days of the Global Conference on the Business of Entertainment. Looking at both of them, the conference can be said to be skewed in favour of cinema sidelining its other siblings like television in the arena of entertainment. All the same, two really important issues concerning India cinema by and large i.e piracy and the state of script writers in India were addressed in reasonable depth.
Yash Chopra, the Chairman of FICCI Entertainment Committee had urged the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan to take strict measures against piracy and enforce the Goonda Law in state in his inaugural speech on the very first day. The effect of it resonated till the last day when Ambika Soni, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting assured the full support of her ministry in combating piracy in the valedictory session of FICCI Frames.
A historical anti-piracy alliance between the Hindi film industry and the Hollywood studios was launched. Some alarming facts and figures were brought forth by Harish Dayani, CEO of Moser Baer Entertainment. The number of DVD players in Indian homes in 2009 had increased to 45 million as opposed to 4 million in 2007. The cost incurred per pirated DVD is rupees 8 while its average selling price is rupees 30. The total sale of pirated DVDs in Indian market is 700 million which means that the DVD piracy industry is thriving at a profit of 1,500 million rupees! Yes, that’s shocking and it’s even more shocking to know that an enormous part of this money is being used to fund terrorist activities round the globe, as told by Mr. Dayani.
Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO of UTV Motion Pictures raised concerns about camcorder piracy in that people go to the theatres with camcorders and record the films. These are then brought out in DVDs and sold in the market. He said that the government and the distributors needed to ensure that the entry of camcorders in theatres was banned. Sanjiv Lamba, CEO of Reliance Big Pictures spoke about internet piracy and revealed some interesting insights about how around one thousands sites were monitored for 3 Idiots which stopped 2 crore illegal downloads of the film. He cited that to be one of the reasons that made 3 Idiots one of the highest grossers of Bollywood.
Another issue that was taken up a number of times was the deplorable scriptwriting scene in India. Javed Akhtar, the renowned lyricist, poet and scriptwriter was very vocal and spoke passionately about the state of affairs in the Hindi film industry. To everyone’s dismay, came the revelation that the Scriptwriter’s Association was negotiating for a minimum amount of 2 lakhs per script with the producers. In an industry where stars are paid insane amounts of money, it came as a shock to most of the audience. Mr. Akhtar said that he didn’t see things changing in the next five years, owing to the inability of the industry to draw talented writers and the lopsided approach of the film producers. He said that the producers today were making films for the diaspora and the multiplex audience sidelining the 75% of the Indian population that resided in small towns and villages.
Noted screenwriter Kamlesh Pandey, in a lighter vein shared his experiences with the script of Rang de Basanti. The film that went on to become a major blockbuster was rejected by many producers initially. Most of the producers didn’t even care to read the script which just reflects what happens to offbeat scripts in an industry which is governed by formulaic recipes of masala films. One producer after having sat on the script for two months had asked Mr. Pandey who was playing ‘Basanti’ in the film thinking it to be a remake of Sholay! Mr. Pandey too echoed the sentiments of Javed Akhtar and said that the real India was out there and that writers from small towns were the only ray of hope as they could bring freshness to the industry that is facing a dearth of original scripts. Ashok Amritraj, CEO of Hydepark Entertainment in his address at the valedictory session mentioned that the writers were the unsung heroes of the business of cinema. One of the drawbacks of Indian cinema was that not enough credits were given to the writers.
Quite a lot was discussed and awareness created at the 11th FICCI Frames about piracy and screenwriting issues facing the Indian film industry. What one is waiting to see is what practical steps are adopted to deal with these problems. As cynics will tell you, they have been discussed in these boardrooms year after year and yet nothing has changed. This year’s FICCI Frames though brought about a lot of hopes as the people who matter resolved to go a step beyond these usual discussions. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed!
