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Usha Raman

When you talk business, let's haul in some creativity and fun, says noted filmmaker Zafar Hai. For today, people want to hear less corporate jargon; let imagination lead the way... is the collective sentiment.

From focusing on the life of a "rising sun" to recreating the lives — and times — seen by the documentary Taj of Apollo Bunder, with some corporate stories and advertising ideas constantly in the making, director Zafar Hai's discerning viewfinder keeps more than busy. "It's definitely not a routine sort of job," says the director who was recently in the news for the well-received documentary film on the famous Taj Mahal Hotel of Mumbai.

In a business where directors and artistes get pigeonholed into one genre or another, and are typecast into doing one sort of work or another, Hai has managed to keep a toehold on a variety of genres, and has made it possible to work not only on "films on order" but also films made to his own order.

"I don't see film making through blinkered eyes. I bring a rather wide sensibility to it, no matter what sort of film I am doing," says Hai. This "wide sensibility" allows him to find the best approach, the most creative way of dealing with a subject, no matter what the purpose. This sensibility has allowed him to take a subject like the life of a corporate scion, and turn it into a lengthy but illuminating chronicle of success. Or to scrunch the wide-ranging activities of a charitable hospital into a 15-minute emotion-charged story. Or again, to bring the breadth and depth of an intimate relationship into the sharing of a cup of coffee.

Many believe that dealing with the corporate world blunts the edges of the artistic imagination, forcing it to submit itself to such needs as "target public" and "brand building". Hai, however, feels that "the days of corporate films being purely promotional are long gone". Companies know that people are impatient with obvious marketing hype; they too want to capture audience interest by doing something different. "And," he continues, "once you understand what the client wants from a film, you can find an angle that achieves that purpose. You have to be very creative to make an impact — and I try and do that all the time."

Of course, he acknowledges, it is a difficult job, "but these days most clients are willing to be persuaded." When working on a corporate film, Hai and his team at Cinerad Communications (his Mumbai-based company) deal directly with the client's top management. "People at that level respect you for your craft, and are open to what you as a creative person might have to say," explains Hai.

Making advertising films is another story, though. "When you are dealing directly with a corporate client, it is possible to negotiate a common purpose, and then work towards that. But when you are doing a commercial, you usually deal with an agency representing the client, and that can be quite a difficult situation." Most agencies, says Hai, are "too subservient to what they think is the client's idea". Not to mention the fact that there is the natural urge to protect their own turf. "A creative person should be able to stand his ground, and often agencies don't have the guts to stand their ground against a client," he adds. Despite this, he feels that this is an exciting time for advertising films in India. "We're seeing the emergence of a new kind of creativity, coming out of the soil, with many small-town copywriters coming up with truly inventive ideas."

Obviously, all creativity has not been colonised by the corporate world, even where that creativity may serve the interests of that world. "When working on a corporate film, I think I am sometimes like a lawyer — my job is not to judge or make a comment on the institution I am trying to promote, but to show them up in the best possible light," says Hai. For a corporate project to interest him, he has "to see a film in it". He wastes no time in telling people there is no point in telling their story on film if there is simply no film in the story.

Occasionally, there will be a case where a story unfolds as film even as he sits in on the very first exploratory meeting with a potential client. As it happened with a film that he is now working on for the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad. And as was also the case with a film that evolved out of a common interest between Hai and a friend, Zareer Cama, who was heading HSBC operations out of Mumbai. The film, The Merchant Princes of Bombay, was based on the lives of four business tycoons who built their fortunes in and out of the city, and in so doing, also built the foundations of India's commercial capital. "Making a film on individuals or institutions you admire makes the task so much more pleasurable."

"In such cases, there's a personal interest that develops," he says, "and the project goes beyond business."

Picture by P.V. Sivakumar

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