Technically, everyone’s a moviemaker — for real, or potentially. That is, since smartphones became near-universal. And you could shoot, edit and release online, shorts, videos, reels, with yourself as lead character of your own movies; that all of us are, in life, anyway.
This is true for all artistic pursuits — photography, yoga, make-up, fashion… But if you introduced yourself to me as, say, a poet — I’d disagree, until you told me what you made from it.
In my unsolicited opinion, it’s only when you derive income from a pursuit, that it switches from a hobby into an identifiable profession. How much you make ain’t important. A buck will do.
Just that you can’t make a living from a buck. And so amateur filmmakers aspire to be part of film industries that promise them more: showcasing works on YouTube collectives, network TV, OTT… Theatrical release remains the holy grail.
This is where the biggest investments take place still, in lieu of widest audiences. The longer a film takes to make, the more you load it with the cost of living/lifestyle of those involved in it.
Which is why I find it strange when people balk at the idea of, perhaps, a screenwriter demanding R1 crore for a job. It’s annual/biennial/triennial income, sometimes. If not, moreover, the price to monetarily protect a fine talent.
Except, the bigger the finances involved, the lesser the creative risk producers are willing to take. Look at Hollywood. All that’s left of it are one-size-fits-all ‘tentpoles’.
It wasn’t so in the ’90s, the last great decade of American mainstream, with widest range of cinema competing at the box-office.
As actor-producer Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting, The Talented Mr Ripley) put it in a video-interview that once went viral, it’s got everything to do with the decline of DVDs, “that was a main part of the [producer’s] revenue stream, which would reopen six months after theatrical release.
“Once that went away, it changed the movies we could make. For a $25 million movie, you put in $25 million for P&A (print and advertising), splitting revenue with exhibitors.
“So, you’d have to make $100 million to make any profit. The idea of $100 million on the kinda movies I loved, and made bread and butter [from], became a massive game. In a way, that it wasn’t in the ’90s!”
Decline in DVD sales coincides with rise of OTTs that are what, if not full-fledged DVD libraries. OTTs pay lumpsum licensing fees for films. This promise hugely helps with filmmaking budgets, even while DVDs technically offered lifetime box-office-type earnings.
‘Satellite’ TV did the same as OTT. Except, you had to be home/free to watch a particular film, on TV, at the appointed hour. Primacy of theatres remained unchallenged.
The Mumbai/Indian OTT party got over, once they linked licensing fees to theatrical footfalls, bamboozling risk-takers/producers both ways, simultaneously. Audiences don’t go into theatres, for certain kinda films, knowing it’ll get on OTT. That film makes less from OTT, because nobody came into theatres! What’s the solution?
Actor-producer Aamir Khan says the problem is with the “business model”, where you demand ticket prices for a film that audiences have already paid (subscription fee) for, once it gets on their OTT platform, eight weeks later!
Aamir’s Laapataa Ladies barely made anything in theatres. If I’m not mistaken, it was watched by more people on Netflix than Ranbir Kapoor’s blockbuster, Animal! What did the producer gain? Little.
Aamir also argues for more cinemas in India. Which sounds ironic, given fewer are anyway entering theatres. But it’s not, considering so many North Indian districts/towns have no cinemas at all. Where do they watch theatrical releases?
Single-screens were usually too huge as audis to sustain four shows, 365 days. Several shut down. People got smartphones in their hands.
News reports suggest Aamir has decided to release his next film, Sitaare Zameen Par, online, for pay-per-view (PPV), bypassing OTTs altogether.
PPVs are closest to DVDs that, of course, you can’t touch/feel. But there’s the same intentionality in the transaction. You pay for exactly what you wanna watch! As against with OTTs, where algorithms usually throw up what to catch next.
Flip side: it’s on YouTube/regular Internet that, in popular imagination, is still perceived as free. As per a new EY report, over 50 per cent of Internet consumes pirated content! As it is, this issue applies to OTT/theatrical releases.
Has PPV been a success in the past (globally)? A couple of times, yes (Disney’s Black Widow, Universal’s Trolls World Tour). Outside of films — with live sports, for the longest!
Have I done a PPV? Last time, with Anora, because it’d won Best Picture Oscar, the same day. First time, with Salman Khan’s Radhe (for work; during pandemic). I couldn’t even pay attention!
At least between Salman and Aamir (let alone others), you know the latter stands the greatest chance with a captive audience, given credibility, earned over a couple of decades of memorable movies; and he’s out with a film, only once a coupla years.
The last question to ask is, if this will work. We know something’s desperately not working with Bollywood, anyway. I can feel the gloom in Andheri. At least someone’s looking at the problem differently.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture.
He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.