Ram Gopal Varma Blog about Delusioninstitutes

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Delusioninstitutes

ram gopal Varma

27 October 2009

I keep meeting so many actors and directors who have come out of the film institutes and I really feel sad for them as I strongly believe that their whole training is so misplaced in the context of how the film industry works. This I am saying in the context of the direction and the acting courses.

The primary problem is that most don’t realize that films have metamorphosed from an art form into commerce and glamour driven forms. Very rarely does an actor come to the film industry to become a Naseeruddin Shah. Mostly he comes to become a Shahrukh Khan. Also unlike the olden days, most don’t join an institute today to train their passion towards a specific art but they do that mainly because they believe that the institute might give them an easier access to the film industry and the industry might take them more seriously than they take other new comers who have not come from a so-called film institute.

But it does not work like that. Unlike how one takes a medical or an engineering graduate I have yet to meet a single filmmaker of any significance who has taken any film institute graduate seriously. This is even more truer of film institutes floated by film related people that have sprung up in the last few years.

Each and every filmmaker I know only after interaction on a one-to-one level decides whether to hire the services of an actor or a technician. It won’t make a difference whether he/she is from the institute or not. So in that sense why does one join an institute?

One of the things which used to be told to me is this that in an institute you get access to world class films through its archives. It might have been so in olden times. But then in today’s times every corner DVD store has every film anyone ever wants to see and if it’s not there you can always get it through the internet.

Also they used to say that the film institutes give access to film equipment for you to make your debut project film. But today the truth is that you can just with a digital camera and a laptop make the film you want to, for the purpose of making a show reel to use it as your calling card to some production company. Then why waste your years and your money?

The primary function of any educational institute and not just a film institute, is to train its students in such a way that they will be in a position to come out and get work. For example, look at the many MBA institutes operating in the country. It is common knowledge that the future of an MBA institute directly depends on the percentage of campus placements that it managed to secure for its students. Why should film institutes be any different when its students also are pursuing a professional degree and are also expecting work at the end of it? But if you look at the track record of most film institutes, a very miniscule percentage of the students end up getting any real work in the industry that too almost never on the basis that they are from an institute. But then how and why do the institutes continue to function?

It’s because they thrive on hope and misinformation of its students.

I sincerely think that in today’s day and age in the context of how the film industry actually functions, it is time for these film institutes to seriously look at the formatting of their system into making it a more practically applied professional course, because careers and dreams of many youngsters are dependent upon it. But instead, many film institutes engage themselves just teaching things at the institute which would be seldom applicable, and students just end up looking at the world from their illusionary heights into the real world not realizing that the day when they come down they will be for most of their lives spend their time on the ground looking at others heights. I have never been to a film institute, and so I don’t even know what happens in an institute in the first place! But I do know for a fact that something is wrong in the way these institutes are run. And this I am saying from how many desperate SMSs and calls I get on a daily basis from film institute graduates asking for work. Many times, the same people keep calling or texting for months and years and you know then that things are not happening for them in the practical world of the Mumbai film industry.

Also, many times during my interaction with some film institute students, I have seen that they are completely confused. Most of them seem to live in some far off worlds and have some vague notions of the kind of films they want to make. Most of them are influenced by European cinema or something like that and they aspire to make similar films here in India. Now it beats me completely whether they truly realize that such films will never ever get made in the commercial requirement of the film market. The reasons for that are many and most of them are very simple to understand too. But they have been brainwashed and hence simply refuse to look around and learn and accept and change. And when their struggle starts stretching into years and years, frustration creeps in and then they will blame the industry for their failures.

Films have always been and should be an expressionist art and in today’s times with the access to technology they are even more so. Filmmaking is about an individuals style of story telling and I think instead of corrupting one’s mind by filling their heads with yesteryears cult classic like “Citizen Kane” etc they should be encouraged and trained to develop their own individual instincts and/or make it crystal clear to them that they should be crystal clear about whether they want to become, a Aneez Bazmi or a David Dhawan or a Bhansali or a Spielberg or some Koskoversky or Dianosky etc (very much like specialization courses in Medicine & Engineering), and also make them understand what might or might not come into their life and career in terms of money and fame, in terms of which package they choose. Unless they do that institutes will do nothing but just breed delusions.

Note: Thanks to Ram Gopal Varma for giving us special permission to republish his blogs in idlebrain.com (visit rgvzoomin.com to visit Ram Gopal Varma's blog)

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