One Item Less (3/3) : The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal
Part One
Part Two

Another theatre writer, Vikram Kapadia, whose play is undergoing adaptation for film, thinks that “there is no fixed formula as to what makes a film work”.

Vikram’s play ‘Black With Equal’ is a black comedy in English about the trials and tribulations of a housing society and has been staged more than a hundred times.

Like Aatish, he is comfortable with placing an item song in the film but his concern is avoiding the ‘dumbing down’ ‘of content. He wants the audience to understand his film but doesn’t want to sacrifice the richness of the content; the reason the play was popular.

“This much I can do; I can shift some of the scenes from the building to, say, a garden”. But is he going to agree to the producer’s demand for an item number in the garden? For instance, a scantily clad girl dancing around the fighting residents? “This would mean giving too much importance to the song”, he says, pauses, and adds, “however, there is a role of a bar dancer in the film and we could include the song somewhere”.

Vikram is currently writing the final draft of the film that he shall also direct.

He says that he has so far faced no pressures from the producer regarding his vision for the film.

“I am noticing that the trends of filmmaking are changing and producers are realising the importance of the content of the film. That is why you can show one minute of any song in the film and people can hear all of it in the audio disc”.

Sanjay concurs; “Some directors and writers may have differences regarding item songs and marketing but finally they align with the marketing concepts”.

He illustrates the synthesis; “Khosla Ka Ghosla had a foot tapping Punjabi song that was used as a promotional song but was not a part of the film. Similarly, the item song in ‘Jab We Met’ was used over the closing titles of the film”.

And though Suhail would not want an item song to be placed out of context, he is okay with their inclusion in a film like Vishal Bhardawaj’s ‘Omkara’, where the songs were absolutely integrated with the film.

Atul is currently working on an adapation of a novel to film and also on the screenplay of Kamal Haasan’s ‘Marmayogi’ that is currently on hold. He hopes to keep his screenplay free from needless songs and item numbers.

“So far, I have not had to compromise”, he says. “I am trying to keep myself away from projects that require such adjustments.
But it would be difficult, I feel”.

Table

After talks with producers who don’t want to be named.
Films are made for different segments of an audience and each segment is targeted differently.

Age	Target	Strategy
4-13	Children who will pull their parents to theatres	A fast & ‘catchy’ song a la ‘Maan da Laadla’ from ‘Dostana’
13-25	Teens and young adults	Rope in some big star, style, costumes
25-40	Young adults and middle-aged people	25-40 Contemporary content a la Rang De Basanti
40+	The grown-ups	Passion and yesteryear ideals like Yash Chopra Films

Example: a film like Dostana would fit mostly in the first three categories. It had ‘catchy’ songs, big stars and contemporary content (homosexuality) that was humourous.

This concludes the story, ‘One Item Less’.

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The Young India

One Item Less (3/3)

on February 20, 2010

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