Filmi
Funda
I thought that making a film was so
easy. But then I discovered it is not so, not by a long way.
Just the other day, I was sitting
with a dear friend (who shall remain unnamed as he wishes to be anonymous till
his film is declared a super hit) and he was narrating his travails. You see,
he had been a good story-teller in his youth especially when he had to face his
parents over the matter of his school reports. This had convinced him many
years later to try his hand at film-making.
He had made a film based on a very
interesting story of three villainous gangsters who are forced to hide in the
lower basement of a skyscraper for days on end. This lower basement is used as
a storage area for traffic sign boards. The police who are on their trail try
to flush them out by first cutting off the electricity, then the water and
finally the phone lines. The villains who are from one of our well known,
modern cities are unfazed as they are used to living without electricity, water
or any utility. But the hiding place proves to be too claustrophobic for the
chief villain because wherever he turns he sees signs telling him "No
Parking" or "No Entry" or "One Way". He begins to wish
that he had gone up to the roof instead of coming down to the basement. In fact
the film's title "WISH WE WERE ON THE ROOF" is based on
this very thought!
But I am digressing. Let me get back
to my dear friend and film making.
So, according to my dear friend,
there are certain rules to be strictly followed while making a film, if you
want it to hit the box office dead centre. His favourite five are:
- Take great care to ensure that all characters in the story are
extra-terrestrials and have absolutely no resemblance or relationship to
any person living, dead or imagined.
- Don’t give names to any character in the story. Some one somewhere
may take offense. Use 16-digit alpha-numeric codes instead.
- Do not have any dialogues in the film. Some one somewhere may take
offense to what some character in the film may be saying to some other
character. Let the characters communicate with each other in sign
language. Make sure that this sign language is not known to anyone so no
one will find it offensive. Copyright the sign language, just to be on the
safer side.
- Make sure there is no music or song in the film. Some one somewhere
may take offense to the music or the lyrics of the song or the singer/s or
the actors or the locale. Or some one somewhere may just take offense
without giving any reasons. After all, this is a free country and no one
needs to give any reasons to take offense.
- Do not shoot your film in any identifiable location. It may hurt
the sentiments of the people of that place. Better still, make sure the
location is not visible and the film is totally dark. Some one somewhere
may see something objectionable. Why should we hurt anyone’s feelings?
I think there is something in what my
dear friend says.
Don’t you agree that a dark and
silent movie will be a great hit?
