CONTENT IS THE KING: THE WRITE DOCTRINE

Interacting with Abhishek was heart-warming – since he is someone who has just begun his journey in the industry with which I have grown old ( and senile). He is young, comes across as rather energetic – and has that fizzy and adorable quality of someone who doesn’t claim to know everything as yet.

That reflects in his honest and straight answers down there.

I won’t have much of an intro this edition – since fiction screenwriting is an arena where I am making a slow but steady entry. There’s not much I can say about it. As of now I am trying and hoping. Hoping that all my years spent in documentary film-making will give a special tinge to the fiction I eventually get to write – making it somewhat special for others as well.

As of now, Abhishek has worked in a couple of films and OTT shows, and my access to him is through my dear friend Sudeep Nigam. Abhishek was part of the writing team that wrote Avarodh – the Siege Within. It was the quartet of screenplay writers Harmanjeet Singha, Sudeep Nigam, Adhaar Khurana and Abhishek Chatterjee that worked on that much appreciated series.

For those who might not have seen it, it’s a popular show for SonyLIV – based on a chapter from Rahul Singh & Shiv Aroor’s book, India’s Most Fearless, it’s a detailed account of the 2016 Uri surgical strike, with some creative liberties – of course.

Which reminds me, one of these days I will have to get hold of Shiv Aroor, my former colleague from India Today TV; his career graph as a defense journalist turned novelist will be an interesting dimension to capture.

That will happen when it happens.

For now, let’s get to know from Abhishek Chatterjee how a trained Engineer and MBA stumbled upon the diametrically different vocation of a scriptwriter.

“COMMISSIONED PROJECTS REQUIRE A LOT OF SKILL”

My first film Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz was sheer luck.

As someone working in the corporate sector, I had no idea of how to break into the industry. I therefore kept submitting my scripts in all possible Screenwriting Labs. These labs fund the top few scripts for development and also facilitate their auctioning to production houses. Film director Onir was one of the jury members at the 2016 edition of Drishyam Sundance Screenwriters Lab. He came across the script of ‘Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz’ and reached out to me with the offer of directing it.

Thus started my journey in the film industry, but I still had no ambitions of pursuing a career here as a screenwriter.

That’s because, being an MBA – I wanted to dabble into the business/marketing side of film making and eventually move towards the creative side. The reason for that is writing in our industry comprises largely of commissioned projects, ie, a director or a production house has a concept in their mind and onboard writers to flesh it out. Now that requires a lot of skill as you not only have to understand the world and the characters that they want to create but also add a lot to it through your own experiences.

It is easier to write about something that you have personally experienced. It is here that a writer’s ‘craft’ comes into play and I never thought that I had that in me.

I have been fortunate enough to meet some really kind film makers at the start of my career who patiently bore through my trials and errors as I learnt the craft in the process. (P.S.: I am still learning)

Abhishek is what we might call a small town boy. He grew up in the Steel Township of Rourkela in Odisha. After doing engineering (NIT Warangal) followed by an MBA, his love for cinema prompted him to start making short films early on. While he was still working as a software engineer at Hyderabad he made a short called ‘Gutthi – The Riddle‘ that went on to be nominated at the 10th Indian Film Festival Stuttgart (2013) for the Director’s Vision Awards. This film was later remade into Girl In Red. At 16 million plus views, the film remains one of the highest watched short films in India.

There are other stuff that Abhishek has done, all connected to cinema, since he took the plunge out of his plush corporate job with Bajaj Auto in 2016. That includes a voluntary film-curator stint for independent and documentary films at Lost the Plot – one of the country’s few alternate distribution centers. Abhishek thereafter joined Onir’s company as a Marketing Head. This helped him pick up a bird’s eye view of both the creative and business side of the film-making process.

Now that Abhishek is totally into the writing mold, I thought of asking him about how the concept of a writer’s room works. All the more so since I am hoping to get into one of those rooms soon – post corona, of course. Right now we writers, frail beings in any case, are con-calling (with our videos off) to prevent our coronation.

“I HAVE BENEFITED A LOT FROM WRITERS’ ROOM”

Writers’ Room is a western concept and pretty prevalent there. The idea is to have various minds working on the same story so that it has multiple viewpoints. The writers are given a place, mostly in the offices of the production houses, where they can meet and work regularly and thus the name Writers’ Room.

In India some OTT platforms have made it a part of their SoP to compulsorily have 2-3 writers working on a project keeping the above factor in mind; while others leave it upon the Production House. Since a longer format also comes with its own pressure of timelines some production houses employ multiple writers to meet with those timelines.

At a personal level I have benefited a lot from Writers’ Room. Each writer comes from a different background and experience. So bouncing off ideas with them or hearing their feedback helps you not only grow as a writer but also as a person.

In my own limited experience with OTT platforms, I have sensed that they more or less follow the same rules followed by mainstream television – in terms of story structuring and plot progression. At their best, they are conventional.

If there are any stark differences – it has missed me, as of now. The reason behind this might be they have taken their people largely from TV – and these are people bound by long-standing TV programming conventions. It’s not easy to break them to do something new – that much I can say with authority.

For a writer this means following the beaten track of high points at regular intervals, leading up to a mid-episode climax as well as insert a cliffhanger at the end. This the producers expect will keep the viewers glued – as they move from one episode to other.

Frankly, I don’t subscribe to this view entirely – since I believe cliffhangers are a TV thing where episodes arrive weekly, where they help keep the interest alive for an extended period of time. What’s the use of a ‘forced’ cliffhanger if you have access to all the episodes anyways – unless the target is to merely extend viewing time?

Anyways, that’s marketing claptrap; it’s not my job to analyze the ‘why’ of that. I would rather ask Abhishek to throw some light on the rules writers are often made to follow, and the role of the agencies in the creative process.

“MAKE A SHOW BINGE WORTHY”

There is only one rule that I have seen the platforms being strict with: a cliff hanger at the end of each episode. The whole concept of making a series binge worthy adds to the pressure of this rule.

However some genres don’t allow for this organically. For example, an MX Player show – Pawan & Pooja – that I wrote was a relationship drama and it wasn’t always possible to end the episode on something dramatic or suspenseful. So if there was a progress in the arc of a character(s) we decided to end the episode on that note a couple of times.

I am not represented by any agency yet but their role is primarily to ensure fair compensation and credits to you. Since they are connected to multiple production houses and OTT platforms they are also aware if someone is looking for a writer for a particular project and help you with your placement there. Many agencies also help the optioning or auctioning of your spec script (non-commissioned script that a writer writes on his/her own) to a suitable platform or production house.

The modus operandi is that one can pitch a project to an OTT platform in an individual capacity as a writer/ director or do it through a production house. A production house being onboard is extremely important as ultimately they execute the project. A director can be attached to the show from the very beginning or come in at a later stage once the writing is complete. In such a scenario it’s important to have an environment where all the stakeholders can freely discuss their viewpoints. Creativity is extremely subjective so being forceful or intrusive doesn’t help. Content should be the winner at the end of the day.

Personally for me two things become important before committing to a project – the subject matter and the people attached. It makes the journey more enjoyable.

So what about the differences in OTT and theatrical releases – from a writer’s perspective? I know the question is now turning a bit archival – after close to 10 months of Covid induced lull. No one is interested to spend money on new projects – even the old ones are awaiting release. So many films originally meant for theatre has now been released in OTT platforms. The small screen is on high tide.

Yes, it’s a somewhat defunct question, but I asked it anyways.

Theatrical releases will make a comeback soon. It’s simply impossible to compare the grandeur of a big screen with Dolby surround with that 10 inch tab, even if it has a UHD screen. Big screens might go someday, but I earnestly desire – not in my lifetime.

“OTT PLATFORMS ARE HUNGRY FOR CONTENT”

Both the films that I have written for – Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz and the yet to be released Roam Rome Mein – have not been star vehicles. So there were no additional pressures to do something keeping the box office in mind.

The good part of writing for a film is that your part of the process, i.e., writing gets over fast. But there are more stakeholders involved in a theatrical release. So the overall time from getting a film green-lit to it finally seeing the light of the day is sometimes longer than a series. Currently in India all the OTT platforms are hungry for content so green-lighting of projects are happening faster over there. Plus a longer format allows you to sink your teeth into character and story arcs more.

For example a show that I wrote on the 2016 Surgical Strike called Avrodh – The Siege Within already had a reference point in the minds of the audience (the 2018 film Uri: The Surgical Strike). But the longer format allowed us to show the whole lead up to the strike and its execution in further detail. A lot of praise that we received from the critics as well as the audience was due to this very detailing.

Writing a series thus becomes a more creatively satisfying experience for me.

*A screenshot from Gutthi, a film directed by Abhishek.*

Finally, I asked Abhishek one of those standard questions, what makes him tick? Why does he write after all? And what would be his advice for youngsters interested in writing screenplays as a profession.

Now the question may be standard, but responses to that query always brings out perspectives that help us convince our own selves about what we are doing. Suddenly, all the differences that we think we have don’t matter anymore, and we feel like we are standing together facing the same challenges and finding the same solutions. Our common love for writing becomes all that matters.

That’s exactly what happened with Abhishek.

“WRITE FOR THE LOVE OF IT”

My only advice to any budding writer is to write for the love of it. That is the only thing that can keep you going. Your unadulterated urge to see that story or those characters come to life! That’s because the journey is very long and arduous. It doesn’t matter whether you are writing for OTT or the big screen or even a street play. The story determines the format and hence the avenue of release.

The only preparation that a writer can do is to live, read and watch a lot. It helps one diversify their writing style and also the sketching of characters in the world they create. The more you write the faster you can come up with ideas and the sharper your scripts become.

There is definitely lot of demand for good writers especially with the online space opening up. The only difficult part is getting the first break. Once that happens people will automatically discover your work and give you more work.

That’s all for the day.

I have another part of this emerging-writer trilogy left, which I intend to bring you before the year ends. The New Year will start with a new spirit. I hope to find my disciplined self back as it arrives – become more regular and proactive; by which I probably mean – sleep a little less during the day and eat less of street food.

This has been a tough year for most of us, with no producer or platform willing to shell out money for new projects. Even green-lit projects are not moving forward. For the employed class, it’s bad; for the freelancers, its worse.

This depression in the industry has had an impact on everything – including the frequency of my blogging. It shouldn’t have but it did. Hopefully, this will change soon. It might sound silly but I am eagerly waiting for the year to end now – as if that is going to change anything at all.

Anyways. Hope is always a good thing to have. There will be time.