Producer-Writer Spats: The Road Ahead! article

Share

Two recent cases seem to have stirred up a storm in the film industry - Chetan Bhagat’s grouse against the makers of 3 Idiots, and the settlement case between the producers of Ram Gopal Varma’s Rann and Sonal Mehta, who claimed that the script of the film was based on her work.  While I do not want to go into the legal or moral merits of either case here, the question that I seemed to be asked the most by other screenwriters these days is: How come it is always the writer who ends up with a raw deal?

The history of Indian cinema is witness to some rather dismal instances of good writers who ended up in utter penury and helplessness. One of the more dramatic stories is about Satish Bhatnagar. The reputed screenwriter wrote more than two dozen films including Maryada, Raaz, Abhilasha, Seeta aur Geeta, Hera Pheri and Satte pe Satta. Today, when this inspiring stalwart is unwell, he is unable to pay even for his healthcare and medicines, and is surviving on the charity of friends and a meagre dole from the Film Writers Association. And this, even as his films attract profits today from re-releases and from frequently being telecast on several channels.  

Contrast this with Hollywood, or any other reputed film industry, where a screenwriter’s future is secure after writing a single film with continuing royalties.

The Indian film industry has been going through a commercial crisis for the last two and a half decades, with more than 85% of released films being unable to recover their costs through box office returns. Moreover, barring Lagaan, no Indian film has found appeal among global audiences. This, despite the fact, that India is the largest film producer in the world, churning out more than double the number that Hollywood produces.

Frankly, and this is likely to cause some heartburn amongst my colleagues, but I think the primary reason for this is that scriptwriting quality hasn’t measured up. So while producers complain about the poor work of writers, the latter, barring a few successful ones, complain about the poor professional terms. But, the most serious consequence of this impasse is that writers, frankly, have no professional incentive to invest in developing their skills and craft.

Internationally, the screenwriter’s status is evident in the placement of credit and in the payment of fees and royalties. His position is next only to the director. But here the writer comes way below in the food chain. His fees, on an average, are about 5% of what the director receives, and in several instances about 1%! His credit is seldom assured. And if the film goes on to become a big hit leading to healthy surpluses for the producer from satellite rights, remake rights and other revenue streams, the writer on whose work the film is based, receives no share of those additional profits. It stands to logic that revenue from spin-offs over and above the film like merchandising, adaptation, character used in advertisements, should be shared with the writer.

Moreover, since the film industry has functioned like an unorganised sector for so long, there is hardly any internal regulation or accountability. It sounds absurd but many are actually offered Rs 25,000 for a full script! When the corporates came in, we hoped that they would value talent. What merely happened is that while earlier the exploitation was ad hoc, now it got formalised! Some of them have contracts that actually say that the credit will be at the discretio of the producer. This is worse than the feudal system.

To redress this situation, a Model Contract has been drafted which will streamline and regulate the producer-writer relationship. It has been collectively crafted by the Model Contract Consultative Group set up by the Film Writers Association in April 2007. After drafting, we shared it exhaustively with about 575 screenwriters who attended the Indian Screenwriters Conference in December 2008, and with their feedback fine-tuned it further. Effectively, it has been endorsed by the entire Hindi film screenwriting community. Members include names like Javed Akhtar, Jaideep Sahni, Abbas Tyrewala, Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap and Sriram Raghavan, among others.

Given that we believe this is in the mutual interest of the writer and the producer (it makes both parties accountable), we see no reason why producers should resist. 

Anjum Rajabali is a noted screenwriter, script consultant, mentor and teacher. He is associated with the body of practising filmwriters of Indian film industry the Film Writers’ Association (FWA).