1. Cinema Industry
Arguments are very common amidst
Kollywood fans about the budget of their favorite stars’ movies. They claim sky
high the budget and sales figures of the movies to the fans of their conceived
opponent heroes. But they do all the boasting without knowing the basic facts
like how the movie is sold, how a movie is distributed or even if the movie
could collect back the huge amount of funds gone in the making. They don’t cost
them anything. Just plain talks! Same time, it is also fact that some
shoestring budget movies, which had costed the producer a few crores have
surprised the whole K-town with tremendous success and amazing collection.
Do Tamil films have a market huge
enough to generate the income of mega budget movies in triple digit crores? It
is generally told that the whole Kollywood films business can be included in
seven areas. Within this confined market place how is it possible to collect
back all the investment, not to mention the profit? Is the movie theater
tickets only source of income for a film? Does the producer invest all the
money counting only upon ticket income? Are there any other avenues for income
for a film? Do small budget movies have the same exposure to these markets? All
these questions are quite common for an outsider.
Slum dog Millionaire – The British
movie which was celebrated across the world and swept the academy awards was a
micro-budget (In Hollywood scale) film shot with digital camera, which coasted
a mere US $ 15 million. Collections crossed twenty times of movie budget. This
is not a miracle but was possible only after a production house giant called
Twentieth Century Fox bought the movie rights and marketed the movie in a stellar
manner. Typically a movie has multiple avenues of income from box office sales,
DVD, music rights, satellite channel rights, music download rights, pay-for
view channels and many more, and a movie is traded in these many fronts as
well.
Folks make a case that Hollywood
movies enjoy multi faceted trade opportunities due to their worldwide business
and incomparable reach. They glaringly miss the crucial element called
marketing, which is the key factor for such success, lying behind the humongous
success of Hollywood films. Is movie marketing that important? YES!
In the 79-year-old Tamil cinema
industry, there were times when the number of movie releases had been
progressively increasing. Movie halls witnessed even 100 plus releases in a
year during the good times. Also there were times where the annual release
count has declined to mere sixty plus due to the multi-thronged attack from
VCDs, DVDs and cable television. It is interesting to note that even during
these tough times, superstar studded movies have flopped and humble movies with
moderate budget and small stars have emerged victoriously, turning in to the
proverbial dark horses. For instance, many films from the stables of veteran
directors K.Balachander and Barathiraja are small budget movies as said above.
Barathiraja’ s trendsetter movie 16 Vayathinile was shot within a few
lakh rupees budget. So are many of Balachander’s films. Visu’s Samsaaram
adhu minsaaram was completed with a mere thirteen lakh rupees but went all
the way to win national award and golden lotus award. There is a similarity in
all these giants’ films. They were all milestone hits in Tamil film history and
most of them were trendsetters.
Let me talk about Sethu, a
small budget film that stormed the entire state and turned out as a classic
dark horse. It takes courage for a new producer to venture a movie with a new
director, then not-so-strong Ilayaraja and a hero jaded with successive flops.
After the completion, the film has run for 100 shows in the preview theater itself.
No one choose to buy the movie rights. Me along with a bunch of friends planned
pooling our funds together and in turn to try to buy an area right. We watched
the movie and were really impressed. We all were so moved that we were in tears
and almost hugged Bala, the director. That was the kind of impact the film left
with us.
The price quoted for our targeted
area was Rupees Eight lakhs. We were novices in the movie industry but
motivated by a boy-racer enthusiasm to elevate Tamil movie fans’ standards by
introducing them a cult movie of universal quality. However, we felt the price
was way higher, so just evaded the imminent purchase claiming that we’d buy in
more friends to invest and demanded a few more shows. We watched the film a few
more times. Every single time I was reassuring to myself the movie is a
surefire hit. Something was telling me the film has the potential. Finally we
all negotiated to reduce the price to six and a half lakh rupees. But the
producer was firm at eight lakhs. Also as few friends cautioned about the new
crew and previous flop of the hero, we had to withdraw.
Sethu released after much
struggles. First three days, there was nothing to write home about in movie
halls. I watched the movie again at Krishnaveni Theater, where I could count
the audience with my fingers. After the curtains fell, I interviewed the
audience with the zeal, which could defeat that of the distributor, since I was
so impressed with the film since the entire ordeal. To my dismay, I was not
answered by anyone. All of them kept walking with stone hard faces. My mind
struggled. Don’t the like the film? If so, WHY? Questions were whirling
in my mind. I started my bike with a heavy heart. It is then I was startled with a heart-ripping cry from
a mid-aged gentleman, who was pedaling his moped to bring it to life. I thought
that he hurt himself when he was starting the moped and ran to his help. When I
tried to lift him up, he cried even louder, calling out some female name
repeatedly. I understood that the film has scraped his mental wound.
From the third day on, the free advertisement called
mouth talk had started spreading gradually. The crowd increased slowly. 2 weeks
down, the screens were running full houses. Not even a poster advertisement
when the film hit the ground, no advertisement in visual and audio media. For a
film which struggled a lot to be sold out and released, the mouth talk created
an astonishing level of advertisement and a successful one at that. Sethu was
released with very minimal prints. After two weeks, more prints were increased.
At Cauvery
cinemas, Coimbatore, the movie was lifted in a week due to poor crowd.
Thereafter after mouth talk and success in rest of the state, the movie was
re-released in a relatively smaller screen named Anupallavi at KG
Complex. After crossing 50 days at Anupallavi, the crowd was
unmanageable; the movie was shifted to the bigger screen Pallavi. In
Chennai alone, initially the movie was released in four screens. After the
fourth week, the movie was showing in more than eight screens, all full houses.
Sethu
was a movie waried by the majority. As a matter of fact, a doctor, who is
not even distantly related to the industry of stardom, has seen the film
preview and as mightily impressed as I was. He bought the area rights for an
area, which was gunned by our group earlier. This changed the rest of his life
forever. This erstwhile doctor’s life changed overnight and later he would go
on to become a full time distributor and eventually a producer.
This
small budget movie went on to become one of the biggest hits across all the
centers of Tamilnadu. It also created a reputed identity for Bala and Vikram.
It is due to this unexpected surprises and shocks the film industry lures
everyone and remains attractive forever as a dream destination for many
aspirants.
- After a film production is
finished, who decides the selling price for it?
- How is the selling price fixed?
Based on the Banner? Producer? Director? Cast? Technicians?
- How this business operates?
- How the sold movie’s collection is
estimated?
- What are the avenues for income for
a movie except screen ticket sales?
- How the screens release the movies?
What is the mode of operation?
- What are the pros and cons of
satellite channels for a movie?
- Movie is super hit; but the
producer ends up with huge loss. How is this logical?
- Movies bombs at box office; but it
profits the producer. How this can be possible?
- What are the distribution zones of
Tamilnadu?
- How the film distribution works?
Let’s discuss them all here in the
coming weeks.
Cable Sankar - Translation Of My Book In Tamil "CINEMA VYABARAM" Done By Rangs. Published in Behindwoods.com.
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