The Buck Stops Here...

Story: Nikhil Raghavan / Original manuscript of final edited version published in The Week

The buck also starts from here. At least, in the film industry, it does seem so. The talented director may have an award winning script ready. The creative art director may have sketched out all the scenes. The ‘eye-for-detail’ cinematographer may have every angle and shot conceived. The list could go on in respect of every individual involved in the creation of a celluloid masterpiece – right down to the distributor and theatre owner.

But, where would the movie itself be if the all-important Producer had not decided to make it in the first place? Without them how would you ever get to see a movie in a theatre?

This year, in the Tamil film industry, there have been both big and small producers whose respectively big or small budget movies have scored hits at the box office. Some of this year’s big grossers are Sivaji from AVM Productions, Pokkiri from Kanakarathna Movies, Chennai 600028 from Capital Film Works, Paruthiveeran from Studio Green, Mozhi from Duet Films and Unnale Unnale from Oscar Films. Of this Chennai 600028, Paruthiveeran and Unnale Unnale have absolutely new actors. Even Mozhi had just Jyotika as an established star and that was not the main reason for the movie to become a hit.

Scripts reign supreme

In most instances, the decision to go ahead with a project largely depends on the script. In short, the script reigns supreme. Just as how a Producer is paramount in the making of a film, for him, a script is paramount for the Producer. Unless you are Prakash Raj. Actor and Producer Prakash Raj launched Duet Films a few years ago to make good quality entertaining films at reasonable cost and with not so well known actors. “For me it all starts with an idea. And more so, the person from whom the idea comes. I am a people person; people excite me. I will says that in most instances my decision to go ahead with a movie depends on the person who brings up the idea. Of course, the script is very important. I never start a film without a full-fledged bound script,” says Prakash Raj.

Not so with AVM Productions. Says M. Saravanan, Producer and owner of AVM, “Every ten years or so the system overhauls itself and changes. This is my 50th year in film production and I have seen numerous changes. Decades ago, we would have a script either from an independent source or from a director. We would then decide on who should direct the movies and then discuss who would fit in the roles. Everything else would follow automatically. Nowadays, we first decide on a saleable hero. We then look for a director with a suitable script. If we find these two suitable for us to produce, then all else would follow one by one.”

M. Saravanan’s son M. S. Guhan has been involved in the family business of film production for 28 years “This is the Centenary year of our Founder, A V Meiyappan. This is also the 60th year of AVM Productions. The dates also coincide with the 100 days of our biggest blockbuster to date, Sivaji. When we planned this film, we took all this into consideration. I wanted this to be a really big film that would be a gift to my father (M. Saravanan). Therefore I left no stones unturned and broke all traditions and conventional production practices just to ensure that Sivaji would become a landmark in Tamil films,” says Guhan.

So what did Guhan do? To start with, he was intent on getting Director Shankar and Rajnikant together, a fact that had not happened till Sivaji. Once this was achieved after negotiating with other producers for both their dates and juggling them around to suit each other’s conveniences, the third and equally important ingredient – music had to be built in. Guhan insisted on A. R. Rahman who was busy with numerous Indian and International projects. It was only after all these were sewed up, the script was decided upon! Shankar came up with a winning script, Rahman composed some incredible tunes and Rajnikant outdid himself. Sivaji became a roaring success not just in India but also in many parts of the world. AVM scored their biggest success with Rajnikanth’s Sivaji, their 168th film.

Prakash Raj, on the other hand is very systematic in his approach to making films. While his last movie, Mozhi has been a runaway success, he is already onto his next production, Velli Therai. Among the seven movies that he has produced only two – Poi and Naan – have been failures at the box office.

When a script is ready, Prakash assembles his entire cast and crew to discuss the story and for the various players to understand their roles. They then go into a few days of rehearsals. It is only after all this the shooting starts and the script is followed to the T. Aside of his role as a Producer, Prakash Raj is a multifaceted, multilingual actor who also dabbles in theatre. He is both impulsive and corporate in his outlook while planning a production.

Oscar Films’ V. Ravichandran is very ‘script-minded’, too. “There was a time couple of decades ago when a big time hero would call the shots right from selling a script/idea to a producer, choosing his director, music director, co-star down to the distributor and theatre. Not anymore, at least not with Oscar Films. When a director comes to me with a script, if it convinces me, then I go into the next step of finding which hero/heroine would fit the roles and only then will I move onto the other segments of the movie,” says Ravichandran, whose mega budget Kamal Hassan movie Dasavatharam directed by K S Ravikumar is fast nearing completion. His recent hit Unnale Unnale with an entire new cast became a runaway success largely thanks to a superb script and a talented director, Jeeva.

“When we have such a powerful script from as involved a director as Ravikumar, I will not leave any stone unturned to make a Kamal movie a super success. I can assure you that, with the kind of involvement from Kamal and his dedication to the making of this film, Dasavathram is sure to make a mark in film history,” says Ravichandran. Kamal in ten different characters maybe a novelty factor, but the computer graphics implemented to make the multiple imagery in many of the scenes possible is mind-boggling and very, very realistic. In some of the characters, Kamal is virtually unrecognisable.

Ravichandran learnt the ropes of film production after being in film distribution for 27 years along with his father. Of this, the last ten years have been in full-fledged production. “I don’t know any other trade. I live and breathe films. If my waking hours are filled with production planning, my sleeping hours are filled with dreams of making better and more movies,” says Ravichandran.

Not every producer has pleasant experiences in the course of a film’s journey from start to finish. In fact some have uniquely terrifying experiences. Like K E Gnanavel, Producer of Paruthiveeran. Being a second cousin to actor Surya, Gnanavel was attracted by the film industry; he left an agrarian background in Coimbatore and plunged headlong into films. After a short internship in the industry where he learnt the ropes of film production he started his own production company Studio Green to launch Surya’s brother Karthi. Scouting around for a good script he found one with talented director Ameer, in the form of a rustic village story Paruthiveeran.

Says Gnanavel, “Paruthiveeran took a long time in the making and with virtually unknown stars it was draining my resources, although I knew I had a winner on my hands. To balance the monetary equation I launched the Surya-Jyothika starrer Jillunnu Oru Kaadhal and completed Paruthiveeran. Jillunnu…released first and did well at the box office. Meanwhile Paruthiveeran released and became an instant hit. Karthi became a hero overnight and Ameer turned into an established director who could command a good price. Sadly, the production did not make much money as I had overshot the budget; we just broke even.” Thanks to a loose script which kept changing as the course of the film progressed. Gnanavel was still learning the ropes; the hard lesson was learnt that without a strong script and a director who stuck to it, the film could flounder. Luckily for Karthi, he had a good editor who knitted up the film in a very tight manner.


Then there are producers who play it very safe. Ramesh Babu and his father have been film financiers for over 40 years. While his father always considered the finance business a safer bet than producing a film, Ramesh was smitten by the thought of making it big, establishing a banner and being recognized amongst the film fraternity. But he had to wait long till his father retired from active business and handed over the reins to him. In 2003, Ramesh Babu’s Kanakarathna Movies produced Ramachandra with Satyaraj as hero. Unfortunately it sank without a whimper. “Thereafter I waited for almost four years before I picked up enough courage to produce another film,” says Ramesh. This time he was very careful and chose a hit Telugu film and remade it in Tamil, Pokkiri with Vijay as the hero. The film was an instant hit and continues to jingle the cash registers at the box office.

Ramesh’s strategy was very clear. Take a hit film from any other language and remake it in Tamil. Since he was in the film finance business, he was in any case funding quite a few South Indian films. “If there is a winner, all I have to do is buy the rights, select a hit pair, rope in a well-known director and, voila! A hit is made,” says Ramesh. He has just launched Nam Naadu in Tamil with Sharatkumar in the lead, a remake of hit Malayalam film Lion. An Andhra-ite by birth, Ramesh feels quite comfortable in Chennai, doing business here and “will mostly produce Tamil films. I like the work culture here and the respect and recognition one gets, as compared to other states,” says Ramesh.

A different kettle of fish is S P B Charan, son of leading playback singer S P Balasubramaniam. Charan tried his hand at acting in his home production Unnai Charan Adainthain with a whole lot of new faces, including himself, some years ago. But, a discerning and indifferent Tamil audience was not yet ready for films like that. Unnai…and his next production, Mazhai sank without a trace. But Charan braved on; he was adamant and wanted to produce out of the ordinary films and make it big. “I strongly believed in the power of a water-tight script. If a story moves me, I am all for it. That’s how it happened when Venkat Prabhu narrated the story of Chennai 600028 to me. It was the germination of a seed I had planted many years ago when all of us were neighbourhood cricket players. And, when he came up with the idea, I insisted that he would be the best person to direct it even though he had no experience. So we roped in our friends from the past, some new acquaintances and plunged headlong into the production,” says Charan whose banner Capital Film Works became established overnight when Chennai 600028 became a runaway hit.

Fixing the cost

Budgeting becomes a nightmare in most productions. Guhan’s style of working is quite hands on. Despite doing projects with established directors, carefully selected script and popular stars, he is quite involved and keeps tabs of production costs at every stage. Productions are well planned and budgeted right down to the last detail. In fact, almost every film of theirs has been pre-sold even before the first frame is shot. “Except in the case if Sivaji where we did not even have a budget fixed. Quite frankly, we didn’t know how much it would eventually cost. Therefore, we didn’t make an attempt to sell various regions and distribution till almost the very end. The budget was revised three times during the process of shooting the film and we put in all that we had. Also, this was the first film of ours financed to a large extent by bankers,” says Guhan. As a commemorative film to celebrate the achievements of AVM Productions, Sivaji surpassed all expectations and broke all records in Tamil film history.

‘Oscar’ Ravichandran’s last big budget film was Anniyan starring Vikram. Anniyan was the first film in South India to get institutional finance of Rs. 9.5 crores from the IDBI, the first Tamil film to be insured for Rs. 29.5 crores and above all, the accounting during the film making was done the corporate way. “With banks coming in to finance movies, companies like ours have attained a corporate look. We have introduced systems at every stage of production,” says Ravichandran, who is known to be very media shy and even keeps away from the sets. Unlike other producers, Ravichandran does not like media attention and is the only producer in Chennai who never attends even his own `muhurats' or filmi functions. He is extremely low profile and refuses to be photographed.

With his short experience of producing two films Gnanavel is now firm in his mind as to how to go about his next project. “I will insist on a full-fledged script to start with. I would prefer the story and script to be from an independent source and then select a director who can do justice to it. Jointly, we would then choose the artistes for the different characters. This way, I am sure we cannot go wrong,” says Gnanavel.


Organised financing

While Ravichandran feels that big corporate houses coming into film production will only push up the costs and effect the plans of smaller production houses who may not be able to afford most stars, Prakash Raj feels that such corporatisation is good for the industry. “With corporatisation will come proper planning, budgeting and marketing of the film. If properly packaged, any well-made film can be a success. But, unusually big budget mega productions which will demand the cornering of distributors and theatre circuits will effect the release of a smaller film.”

In today’s scenario, with banks coming in funds are not too much of a problem. Says Ravichandran, “Today I can launch a film with Rs.1000. The rest will all come from institutions, sponsors, distributors, theatre owners, etc. If I am confident of my production and its outcome, I will stick my neck out and take the money because I am sure that at the release, everyone will make profits. After all, film making is a business like any other and whoever invests money is surely looking for gains.”

Gnanavel too has built up a fair track record in film production, which will stand him in good stead when he launches his third production. Getting banks to finance his next film will not be difficult. And, from the lessons he has learnt from his two films, Gnanavel will be more careful while planning his next production.

S P B Charan is already thinking big. His next production already has an international outlook with an impressive cast which will automatically bring in the finance. A joint production between his Capital Film Works and Om Cinemas USA Ltd, the suspense thriller Achamundu Achamundu will be directed by US-based film maker Arun Vaidyanathan and shot entirely in the US.

The times are a-changing; the new mantra is to run a production company like a well-managed corporate house. With well-thought out plans and a clear-cut strategy, a tightly controlled production can never go wrong, if all the ingredients are chosen well. That’s why, in Tamil filmdom, more hits are happening, even with unconventional story lines and new actors.
END