The Hindu Business Line : Beyond the box-office

The extravagantly theatrical Indian motion picture industry. That's how Encarta defines `Bollywood', in an entry after bollocks and bollworm. "The informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry in India," explains Wikipedia. "The term is sometimes used incorrectly to refer to the whole of Indian cinema."

Amit Khanna claims to be the first to have used the word in a news story, in the '70s, informs Derek Bose in Brand Bollywood,' from Sage (www.indiasage.com) . Bose traces the word `Tollywood' back to the '30s in the archives of `Journal of the Bengal Motion Pictures Association', to describe `a certain kind of progressive (read westernised) cinema produced by Kolkata's Tollygunge Studios.' Perhaps, it was a mere matter of time for other `wood's - such as Mollywood (Madras), Lollywood (Lahore), and Kollywood (Karachi or Kodambakkam?).

Bose concedes that the common understanding of Bollywood is as "a tradition of film-making replete with mindless songs and dances, star-crossed lovers, ostentatious celebrations of glamour and spectacle, lost and found brothers, convenient coincidences and happy endings." But there is more ...

The Indian film industry releases almost three films a day, or more than 800 a year, "90 per cent of which don't survive beyond a week at the box office." This not counting the 300 or so that remain stillborn! "Of the 800-odd that annually make it to the theatres, barely four or five are declared hits." In contrast, Hollywood has been "consistently coming up with around 200 titles annually for the past several decades," spending an estimated $3.2 billion. "Hindi film producers put in $3.8 billion for their 200." The highest achievement India can claim in film-making is the offering of cost-effective services limited to animation and special effects, states the author. "No Indian studio has yet been able to integrate all the segments of the value chain and offer end-to-end services for any major global film producer." Yet, he is hopeful that film outsourcing can happen in a big way, because of the cost differential on film production and processing, which is a factor of 10 between the US and India.

Bose reminisces about film funding `in the bad old days' thus: "From bucket manufacturers and horse breeders to real estate developers, failed politicians and underworld dons, anybody who had money that could not be legitimately accounted for headed towards Bollywood. They arrived with suitcases filled with currency notes to launch a Bollywood film ... " The gamble worked both ways: A win guaranteed a climb on the status ladder, while a flop meant successful laundering of money. "After all, which income tax inspector was actually going to check how many cars were smashed - not to mention houses burnt and ships sunk - in the course of shooting a film?"

These days, financing Hindi movies in Mumbai is `a rage among Silicon Valley professionals and their families and friends', following the US-based IT baron Kanwal Rekhi's investing in Bollywood, notes Bose. He cites as examples My Bollywood Bride produced by Vivek Wadhwa in 2006, Padma Shree Laloo Prasad Yadav by Krishna Pillai in 2005, and Raj Nidimoru's Shaddi.com (2001) and Flavors (2003). Bollywood is notorious for fudging box-office figures, cautions the author. "In the absence of an independent audit, we can only rely on trade reports to assess the possible hits and misses. A thumb-rule of success, however, is the longevity at the theatres.

Truth may lie beyond the box office. As if to match, "No producer or director, big or small, depends solely on box-office collections - both domestic and overseas - for recovering his investments." Music and telecast rights can bring in substantial revenue, one learns. "Then there are a host of other rights for dubbing and sub-titling in languages other than Hindi, merchandising and release of promotional material, in-film advertising, and co-production and distribution treaties ... "

Entertainingly educative.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali

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