Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (35 page)

During the U.S. shoot of APD, the director and other members of the crew would joke about how the film had no script, and that everything was ad lib or improvised because it was a comedy. While these were exaggerated claims, as I had observed the scripting process for the film a year before in Bombay, the two songs were choreographed basically on location.
²³
The film’s choreographer, Ahmad Khan, arrived in New York with his two assistants the day before the first song was to be shot. The day he arrived, a dialogue portion was being shot in Central Park (
Figure 14
), and during that shoot he and Bhatt (the film’s director) listened to the song on the Nagra recorder, decided it was too long, and discussed where to cut portions in order to trim it by one minute. The next day, having listened to the song on his Walkman—both on the previous day and on the morning of the shoot—Khan began to figure out the choreography based on the location, which was Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. He composed the movements for each verse and musical interlude on-site and directed the two actors in their steps (
Figure 15
). Since almost each verse of the song was shot at a different location, Khan was constantly thinking of other possible locations and backdrops for it, since every location had not been finalized. While shooting another verse for the song on the
Intrepid
(
Figure 16
), a decommissioned aircraft carrier permanently docked on the Hudson River in New York City, Khan decided that it would be nice to shoot a verse on the Circle Line Ferry, and the producer got on the phone to book a boat for the next day. I learned from one of Khan’s assistants that nothing was ever written down, that the choreography was all mentally visualized, and that neither she nor Khan had any formal training in dance, but had learned from assisting another choreographer.

FIGURE 14
Paresh Rawal, Aftab Shivdasani, and Akshay Kumar in Central Park during the shoot of
Awara Paagal
Deewana
, 2001.
Photo by the author.

FIGURE 15
Choreographer Ahmad Khan directing Aftab Shivdasani and Amrita Arora for a dance sequence in
Awara, Paagal,
Deewana
, Central Park, 2001. Photo by the author.

FIGURE 16
Aftab Shivdasani dancing in front of the aircraft carrier USS
Intrepid
during the shoot of
Awara,
Paagal, Deewana
, New York City, 2001. Photo by the author.

Even though Khan was composing the choreography for the two songs line by line and location by location, by no means did it mean that Khan or Bhatt were lax in their work. They both knew exactly what emotions and mood they wanted from the songs and were quite demanding of the actors, doing take after take until they were satisfied—in one instance, spending more than half an hour on a five-second phrase of a song that an actress was having trouble with—in terms of lip-synch, hand gestures, and facial expression—while shooting in front of Philadelphia’s City Hall. Further evidence of filmmakers’ ability to change course was that, after all of the time and effort to shoot and edit the Philadelphia area song, this particular song never made it into the final version of the film, since Bhatt felt that it slowed down the pace too much.

Over the years of observing Hindi filmmakers at work, two features have stood out for me: the relatively low-tech nature of the pro-filmic process; and the remarkably efficient use of resources. Although Hindi films exhibit high production values and are frequently elaborate visual spectacles, the production conditions are surprisingly simple and use minimal technology. With the exception of certain elaborate action or song sequences, Hindi films are shot with a single camera unit.
²⁴
Equipment such as cranes and dollies are manually operated. Clapboards are not electronic, but handwritten with chalk. Ordinary sheets of black paper
and white Styrofoam boards serve as lighting equipment. When shooting abroad, filmmakers use natural rather than artificial light, relying on landmarks, cities, or natural landscapes rather than sets (
Figure 17
).
²⁵

FIGURE 17
Preeti Jhangiani and Aftab Shivdasani during the shoot of
Awara, Paagal,
Deewana
, Philadelphia, 2001. Photo by the author.

Filmmakers did not start working with video-assist technology, where a video camera records the scene simultaneously so that it can be viewed on a monitor, until 1998. In the case of the APD shoot, even though the production team had brought along a video-assist monitor, Bhatt decided against using it since the rented portable generator made too much noise. On the third day of the shoot, when Bhatt remarked how surprised he was that they had only shot 6,800 feet of stock so far (out of their supply of 28,000 feet), his producer observed, “That’s because you’re not using the monitor; with a monitor there are always more re-takes.” As raw film stock is imported and expensive, at one time comprising about 10 percent of a film’s budget, Hindi filmmakers are extremely economical with their stock and do not waste it with unnecessary re-takes, re-shooting, or extra shooting.
²⁶

In fact, raw stock consumption can also be a site to express one’s distinction, as I discovered during my interview with producer/director Rakesh Roshan who spoke in some detail about his use of stock to express his efficiency, planning, and organization. Roshan made an explicit connection between a properly worked-out screenplay and economic efficiency:

Roshan further explained that his first assembly was always about 18,000 feet, which he then edited down to 16,500 feet, so his unused footage was minimal.

When shooting on location, Hindi filmmakers tend to work with the surroundings rather than trying to conform the surroundings to their shooting needs. The general working style of Hindi filmmakers counters the stereotypes held in the United States—of feature filmmaking always involving large, intrusive, disruptive, and troublesome film crews. This became very apparent to me while I was coordinating the logistics of shooting APD at the Bryn Mawr and Haverford college campuses, where I encountered officials whose perceptions of a film shoot were completely at odds with the reality of the APD shoot. While the administrators at both colleges gave their consent to the filming, they expressed a great deal of trepidation about the possible damage that the shoot could do to the grounds and landscaping. The officials were incredulous when I informed them that there were no generators, trailers, lights, or trucks and that the entire cast, crew, and equipment fit in one bus and one van. The American who had been hired by the producer as a local location manager kept commenting to me about how “low-impact” this production was, and that it reminded him of a documentary film shoot rather than a big-budget feature film. In fact, he surmised that even getting official permission might have been unnecessary, since the whole shoot was barely noticeable, even on the quiet and deserted campuses.

A minimal use of technology, however, is accompanied by a tremendous valorization and fetishization of technology. No matter how arcane, any introduction of technology is showcased. For example, during fieldwork in 2000, Sharmishta Roy and her assistant, who were production designers for
Mohabbatein
(Loves), a film directed by Aditya Chopra,
proudly informed me that it was the first Hindi film to use cad technology to generate the blueprints for the sets. The designation of being the “first” to use a particular technology was something I encountered often during my fieldwork and still come across while reading the trade press: the first film to utilize Dolby sound—
Ram Shastra
(1995); the first Hindi film with four-track,
optical stereo sound
—
Hum Aapke Hain
Koun!
; the first Hindi film to digitally create the actor’s double—
Duplicate
(1998); the first Hindi film to have a 90 percent CGI (computer-generated imagery) song—
Kartoos
(1999); the first Hindi film to shoot in synchronous sound—
Lagaan
(2001); the first Hindi film to feature an alien, created in a special effects studio in Australia—
Koi Mil Gaya
(2003).

Since the mid-2000s, the use of special effects, digital technologies, and complex post-production practices in Hindi filmmaking has increased immensely, reflected by the far greater number of animators, colorists, and other post-production personnel listed in a film’s closing credits. By foregrounding their use of such technologies, Hindi filmmakers represent themselves as being aware of, and keeping current with, the latest technologies in filmmaking and asserting their exceptionalism within the industry. For example, in January 2010, I met director Tarun Kumar while he was vacationing in New York, and he related to me how he was using the online virtual world Second Life to do the entire set design, camera blocking, and storyboarding for his latest film. When I asked him if this had become the new norm in Bombay, he replied, “No, most Indian directors have no idea about Second Life. They are not so technically savvy.”

In March 1996, while observing the shoot of Rakesh Roshan’s
Koyla
(Coal) at Chandivali Studios, located in an outlying suburb of Bombay, I met Amrish Puri, a distinguished actor who had a prolific career playing a wide range of supporting roles in a very diverse filmography, including that of the villainous priest, Mola Ram, in Steven Spielberg’s
Indiana Jones and
the Temple of Doom
. After he finished his portion of the scene, Puri sat down next to me on the set and we struck up a conversation. I asked him about his experiences working with Spielberg, which became an opportunity for him to discuss the differences between the Hindi film industry and Hollywood. He characterized the two industries as diametrically opposed, both explicitly and implicitly. According to him, filmmakers from Hollywood were very focused, prepared, and disciplined in contrast to filmmakers in Bombay. He pointed out that in Hollywood “everything
was prepared in advance,” such as storyboards, shot breakdowns, and scripts, and the expectation was that everyone would be ready by the shoot. Puri attributed this readiness to a strong sense of duty and pride in one’s work, which he contrasted with what he found to be the prevailing attitude in Bombay: “Here, even when you’re paying people, you still have to plead with them to work. Everyone acts as if they’re doing each other a favor. The hero and heroine act as if they’re doing you a favor by giving the shot.” He asserted that Hollywood filmmakers had no patience for star tantrums or unpreparedness, and because of its discipline and working style, Hollywood was able to produce films of a much higher quality than the Hindi film industry. Puri concluded his comments by shaking his head and saying, “There just isn’t the same type of discipline here— just a few units have it—that sense of obligation and care for the finished product. Here most units don’t even have respect for the director.”

Puri’s trenchant criticisms
of
the Hindi film industry and unqualified admiration for Hollywood—a phenomenon with a very long history, dating back to the 1930s (c.f. Majumdar 2009)—were a common occurrence throughout my fieldwork. I usually did not have to actively solicit comparisons from filmmakers, for in the course of talking about filmmaking, Hollywood usually came up in some sort of fashion—either as an object of admiration or a site of contrast. When I asked Pamela Chopra to comment on these frequent comparisons to Hollywood, she asserted that most filmmakers “looked up” to Hollywood. “Hollywood is more advanced technically; it is much more advanced content-wise, because they choose from such a vast range of subjects, and that’s because their audiences are so mature. Plus it’s a very alive industry. Things are happening, I mean, innovations take place every year. Every year in Hollywood something new happens. In the technical field, something new is happening. Either a new kind of film has been made, or a new kind of process has been made, or a new kind of camera has been made, or a whole new way of making films. I mean, imagine that film
Toy Story
, it’s completely a computer film!” (Pamela Chopra, interview, 26 March 1996). Chopra’s comments present Hollywood as a sort of techno-utopia and site of unlimited possibilities—a characterization that most people working in the actual sites denoted as Hollywood would not necessarily recognize.
²⁸

Hollywood did not always necessarily refer to the actual southern California–based film industry, but was used by Hindi filmmakers as a label for any English-language filmmaking that took place in a Euro-American setting,
²⁹
which provided them the opportunity to comment both upon the conditions of their filmmaking and the intellectual and social de
velopment of their audiences. For example, during the lunch break of the shooting of
Ishq
, Aamir Khan was describing a fellow actor’s experience working with a foreign film crew to a group of people, including the film’s director, the cinematographer, the cinematographer’s wife, a couple of Khan’s friends, and me. “You know everything was planned out in advance and the daily schedule was posted every day, listing which car would pick up whom and at what time.” He then aimed his remarks specifically at the director, Indra Kumar. “Indu, you know what he noticed was that the last reporting time was always for the director. The actors had to report earlier because they had to get ready, but the director could come to the location last because everything was planned in advance—all the shot lists, shot breakdowns were already done.” In response, Kumar chuckled and said, “Here, the director comes first and waits for everyone else!”

The discourse about Hollywood within the Hindi film industry comprises two broad and interconnected themes that deal with the conduct and content of filmmaking. While Chopra’s comments about innovation refer to the content of filmmaking, Khan’s and Puri’s statements about discipline and preparedness address the conduct of filmmaking, and the overwhelming representation of Hollywood—or its common synonyms “out there” or “out West”—by Hindi filmmakers is that it is more organized, more disciplined, more efficient, and more professional than the Hindi film industry. Hindi filmmakers articulate this contrast within the terms of their specific work practices and thus the features commonly singled out to signify Hollywood’s discipline and organization were the singular (rather than fragmented) shooting schedule and the advance availability of the film’s script. Shashi Kapoor, an actor/producer/director who had worked in a number of British and Merchant Ivory films, discussed how these features enabled better performances from an actor: “The advantage in working in Western films was that it was one schedule, and plus they had a complete script which they gave you, and they gave you advance notice. So four to five months, six months before the shooting would start—or a year—you were aware of what you were going to do, and you had enough time to prepare yourself for that particular character” (Shashi Kapoor, interview, 8 August 1996).

Other conduct-related characteristics of Hollywood admired by Hindi filmmakers were its greater division of labor and higher degree of occupational specialization. Director Mansoor Khan bemoaned the lack of casting directors—more specifically the notion that casting was a specialized
task that required its own dedicated expert—and described how he often had his assistants help him, since casting was not his forte—mainly because neither did he come into contact with a large number of people nor did he watch much television.
³⁰
“There should be a casting director, and that’s what they have there, and they cast brilliantly,” he said. “That’s why it’s so apt, you know? See, not that a director may not be able to cast once in a while, but it would take a lot of load off him if he [could] concentrate on something else” (Mansoor Khan, interview 1 April 1996). In addition to discussing his casting difficulties, Khan described how, as a director, he would be free to concentrate on the broad contours of the film if he were able to delegate the minutiae of certain tasks, like hunting for locations. Stating that such delegation of duties is only possible with a level of “technical expertise,” which exists “abroad” but not necessarily in India, Khan spoke enviously of the level of specialization that existed in Hollywood films: “You look at the credits. The credits just reflect how much more structure there is, and even a simple film requires that amount of detail, you know?” (Mansoor Khan, interview, 1 April 1996).

Hindi filmmakers lauded Hollywood’s attention to detail in numerous contexts, from casting to scripting to set design, but the one topic that epitomized the essential differences between the two film industries was the availability of technology. Firoz Nadiadwala contrasted the Hindi film industry as a technological backwater to Hollywood’s techno-utopia: “How are we going to make films if we don’t have the equipment? If we had good equipment, then we could train good people properly, and they would think about films in relation to that equipment. In America, according to the concept, they’ll make the equipment. Panavision will make lenses according to your requirements. If you tell them what you need and you don’t have the equipment, what will they do? They will make it for you; they will loan it to you at a certain agreed price, and then they will take the equipment back. Here it is not known. We’re still using cameras that are fifteen years old” (Nadiadwala, interview, October 2000). Shah Rukh Khan also raised the issue of technology when discussing why Hollywood films were a continuous source of inspiration for Hindi filmmakers, especially when it came to action sequences. Citing the absence of technologies, such as back projection, morphing, and computer animation (that is, in 1996; currently, they are all available) Khan asserted, “I’m sure. . . if we had the cameras and the accessories they had, we would do better stunts and fights, because our stuntmen are much better, I think. But we don’t have the technology, so we see a shot, and try to more or less
[to] copy it. . . so that it looks as grand and nice as in the foreign film. We do it at a much more dangerous level than those guys” (Shah Rukh Khan, interview, 21 March 1996).

Khan’s statements, while acknowledging
Hindi filmmakers
’ admiration and mimicry of Hollywood, also assert a form of distinction and implicit national pride that, despite the lack of resources, films continue to be made. This is made apparent in screenwriter Honey Irani’s facetious assertion, “Every year America should give us an Oscar for making films with such bad equipment and bad printing—and bad this and bad that” (Irani, interview, May 1996). Thus, when discussing the material conditions of filmmaking, the contrast with Hollywood was deployed by members of the industry to point to the exceptionalism of their own industry. For example, Taran Adarsh asserted during our interview, “I know when you compare Hindi films with Hollywood films, people say
ki
[that]: ‘What are we making?’ But look at the conditions in which we’re making, with no help from the government, yet we’re coming out with films” (Adarsh, interview, September 1996). Adarsh went on to list a number of films that he thought were exemplary in terms of content, style, theme, and then mentioned a specific director whose big-budget multi-star war film was under production at the time: “Look at J. P. Dutta’s kinds of films—brilliant! I mean I have seen portions of his latest film,
Border
, and I think it is [on] par with any Hollywood film. It’s amazing to assemble a cast like that, and to spend so much on cinema is very difficult” (Adarsh, interview, September 1996).

The difficulty and challenges of filmmaking in India have been prominent and recurring themes articulated in a variety of ways in Hindi filmmakers’ narratives and discourses about their work. When relating the difficulties posed by the Hindi film industry’s
work culture
in contrast to the imagined ease with which films get produced in Hollywood, Hindi filmmakers sometimes convert the very same practices that are the source of disdain into marks of distinction. This rhetorical shift is noticeable in Subhash Ghai’s reflections on the challenges he faced as a filmmaker in India, highlighting one of the main constraints as the shortage of qualified technicians and an absence of specialization of the sort mentioned by Mansoor Khan:

From this point of view, the very ability to make films in India becomes a sign of an exceptional and qualified filmmaker. Hollywood—rather an imagined Hollywood—thus serves to showcase filmmakers’ disdain for the work culture of the industry and demonstrates their distinction within a global landscape of filmmaking. The awareness Hindi filmmakers exhibit about Hollywood—or Western modes of filmmaking—and the contrast they draw with their own working style, can also be understood as an expression of their cosmopolitanism—their knowledge and consciousness of other ways of being, working, or carrying out the same tasks in the world.