Confessions of an Epic Indian

A number of you have written in asking about my proposed film Beautiful Ugly as well as other film projects I’ve said I wish to pursue.

A common question most have, or misunderstand, is regarding the kind of film/s I’m interesting in making.

Let’s be clear about this: I’m not at all interested in commercial Bollywood-type song-and-dance extravaganzas.

There are enough David Dhawans and Sajid Nadiadwalas around to cater to that market and to keep the cliche image of “Indian film” dead-alive and toxic for several decades.

Nor am I interested in the so-called ‘multiplex cinema’ which is touted about these days. Yes, there are good alternate films being made and with multiplexes offering alternative screening choices, it’s possible to make a low-budget film without stars or naach-gaana-tamasha and even recover one’s money.

But there are more than enough Onirvans and Nagesh Kukunoors and other talented young (or even not-so-young) filmmakers making those kind of alternate cinema.

I’m not interested in those either.

What I’m interested in is a kind of film that’s easier to make than to describe.

Not a low-budget digital short, or even a handheld documentary.

What I’m talking about is more along the lines of a blog, or a vblog.

Except that the camera is turned outwards, not on the subject or blogger.

I’m talking about films that are video essays, commentary, a combination of reportage, poem, editorialization, fiction, and just plain individual commentary.

I told you it’s tough to explain.

Hopefully, I’ll have a sample of what I’m talking about soon – well, not ’soon’, but “soon”. Maybe in about six months.

Not because it takes time to make the film itself, but because I’m a full-time novelist and have existing commitments to be fulfilled first.

And I’m also in the process of a house-move. Which involves (obviously) house-hunting first, already on as we ’speak’, and is a long laborious process, as you probably know.

But once I complete my first film – or rather, the first one I’m willing to share publicly, since I’ve already made several for my own experimentation and learning process – then hopefully things will be clearer.

Meanwhile, I just want to say a bit about the second question most of you have had: Which concerns the profitability of this ‘venture’ or ‘hobby’ or as I prefer to call it, Creative TP.

To be blunt, there is none.

Not a paisa to be made from this. Not a rupee, cent, dollar, pound, mark, bhat, rupaya, kroner, yen…

In fact, once made and put up on the Net, or burned on a DVD and handed out, the finished work (call it film, essay, whatever) will be under a Creative Commons License.

What’s that, you ask?

Click on the heading of this post if you like, it’ll take you to creativecommons.org, and to a page which spells out in a few simple lines what the Creative Commons License entails.

There’s also a link to a full, comprehensive, legal-bhaasha version of the same License.

But if you want me to summarize it, then basically a Creative Commons License means that the work is Free to distribute and pass on, so long as it is attributed correctly to the creator (which means, it must be attributed exactly as the creator wished, not as you choose), and as long as you do not charge anything for it either.

Clear?

My goal is not just to express myself through these kind of ‘films’, but to snook a thumb at Bollywood and Hollywood.

To prove that it’s possible to make involving, interesting, even entertaining (funny is good too!) films that don’t involve a commercial profit motive.

That are free to view, free to share, free to pass on.

And that are individualistic (although there’s no reason why a bunch of people can’t get together and collaborate either) and express a point of view that comes from a real person, an ordinary person like you or me, not some fat-fisted Bollywood/Hollywood moneybags with a ring on every finger and the other hand busy stroking his…ahem, bank passbook.

It’s like the film equivalent of blogging.

And I don’t claim to be the first one to come up with the idea. Nor the last.

Hope that explains things.