Kapilas Bhuyan
If you have a good story to tell, if you know how to write your screenplay and if you have friends those who are ready to support you, then you can really make not only short or documentary, even an impressive feature film at the lowest possible cost. With the advent of digital format and other allied technological development one can really make very good films as an independent director and producer.
The brightest example of it in Odisha is ‘Khyanika’ which was showcased in the Indian Panorama section of the recently concluded International Film Festival of India (IFFI), 2017, Goa. Produced under the banner of ‘Swastik Art House’, ‘Khyanika’ is directed by Amartya Bhattacharya, an independent film director based in Bhubaneswar.
Whereas Amartya’s ‘Khyanika’ is produced with an investment of Rs. 5 lakh only, his earlier film ‘Capital I’ was produced with a meager amount of below 50 thousand. The secret of making films with such low investment is that Amartya has his 5D Camera set up and does the cinematography by himself. Even he edits and designs his sound track. But he pays for hiring the dubbing studio and music track at post production level. And at the production phase he has to spend for transport, accommodation and food. The most important aspect is that no one from actors to director gets paid. But how does he make it possible?
The secret lies here. He makes personal contact with people with whom he wants to work, tells them about his project and convinces them. And the project unrolls and gets finished unobstructed within the stipulated frame of time.
As opposing the domination of Bollywood industry norms for churning out mindless flicks year after year, the art or parallel film movement had taken momentum in the seventies in India, and similarly, a trend of independent filmmaking movement had emerged in West, particularly in the USA. These filmmakers named themselves independent because they wanted to do away with any industry pressure on them and make films that would draw attention on various social and existential issues. They used to collect the end rolls of negatives from the studios and cement them to get their strip of celluloid and expose them to make their films at low cost.
But the situation is no more like that. It has become much more comfortable now as celluloid format is no more relevant. In fact 2011 was declared as the “Year of Death of the Movie Camera” because, the three major manufacturers of motion picture film cameras — Aaton, ARRI and Panavision — have all ceased production of new cameras since 2010, and have been only making digital movie cameras now. Thus digital has taken over the analogue, not only at shooting the film, but also at the projection of the films in theaters for the audience.
Besides, “cinema is not just a medium. It is a language. Its essence is storytelling with shots and cuts”. And if one knows or understands that language, digital format comes handy for making films. One such pioneering director is Robert Rodriguez who had launched his career by making his first feature film ‘El Mariachi’ in 1992 with the lowest cost of USA $7,225, or Rs.2,75,000/-. You might find it unbelievable, but Robert Rodriguez could make it possible during then.
The basics of low-cost filmmaking is one should understand one’s own resources and plan the film availing that facilities – “start with a no-nonsense resource assessment. Determine as realistically as possible which resources (cash, equipment, crew, post-production facilities) you have access to, then write your script within the framework of these resources. Robert Rodriguez had a dog and a school bus, and both are prominently featured in El Mariachi”.
“Between the late 70s and the early 90s, a small number of outstanding independent filmmakers made first features on very low budgets. John Sayles, Spike Lee, Victor Nunez, David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Wayne Wang and Gus Van Sant all began this way. But it wasn’t until the mid-90s that an ultra-low budget feature film movement began. Three films finished in 1992, Nick Gomez’s Laws of Gravity ($38,000), Gregg Araki’s The Living End ($22,769), and Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi ($7,225), were well received by critics and festivals, secured theatrical distribution and launched their directors’ careers”, writes Peter Broderick of Next Wave Films in the March 1999 issue of Sights and Sound.
This trend is gradually picking up in India of which Amartya Bhattacharya from Odisha is an example. It’s not the same in Bollywood as most of the new age filmmakers are interested in pursuing a career in filmmaking rather than utilizing the medium for self-expression and wider social concern. However, anyone who is interested to make low-cost films using the digital format should start working on the screenplay, should be aware of one’s limitations and utilize the available facilities to the maximum.
If anyone of our filmmakers are bothered about the commercial success of a low-cost film, just remember that lowest investment is the route to maximum gain, and it is surely important in Odisha particularly when, barring a few, most of the commercial attempt of filmmaking ends in a financial fiasco.
(The writer is a Senior Journalist and National Award winning Filmmaker.)
