28 October
Hyderabad

With SNEHA GEETHAM, I just started my journey in tollywood and there is a very long way to go. Some people liked me for my daring step from IT to Telugu Film Industry and some more people praised me for my sincere and honest effort as a debutante director. For all your love, I want to reciprocate with something useful with my experiences. To make my experiences precise, I categorized those under two headers as ‘Best Practices’ and ‘Lessons Learnt’

Most of you already know my association with IT companies as a project manager. The IT bug in my brain always stimulates me to look at things from another perspective. Generally, after finishing up any IT project, we used to sum up the “Best practices and Lessons Learnt” from the project. This clarifies what to do and what not in the next project. The bug made me do the same with the project ‘Sneha Geetham’ after it crossed 50 days of successful run in 23 centers. I have summed up some useful (I think they are useful; you can ignore them if not) things for aspiring movie makers.

With my music company (MADHURA) and film magazine (CINESTAR) since 2004, I was mostly aware of the aspects of film industry and business. I made my mind to direct a small movie as there won’t be much financial risk. But one question started haunting me then. What should be the story of my first film??

Almost all kinds of youthful stories were being filmed by experienced to amateur filmmakers. Almost 9 out of 10 films portray a school or college and love with a happy ending. I decided to make similar kind of college flick with contemporary elements. Middle class students with limited expectations, careless intelligent students with high aspirations and guys connecting themselves with film world are major types in any college or university. My story revolves around these prototypes in the name of Ravi, Arjun and Krishna respectively. Every character is etched out of real life inspiration rather than imagination. The balancing act of love and career dominates every teenager’s life giving some unimaginable twists to their life. Any slight imbalance in pairing these two will lead to disasters. Central idea of my story is also the same core point where all the three characters balance love and career intelligently, carefully and dedicatedly.

The ‘Feel New’ policy pushed me for a STAR HUNT to select the artists. To make my journey smoother, I should be accomplished by reasonably good crew. Selecting the squad is a huge process where mistakes can easily be committed. To have a good grip and control on team, I had decided to go with entirely new technicians.

Finally, we made the shoot, post-production, promotion and then at last we released. Result is known to everyone including some good applauses and very critical comments. I took everything with tons of happiness.

Now, let’s get in to best practices and lessons learnt from the project ‘Sneha Geetham’. Just to note, whatever I am writing below mostly applies for a small budgeted movie.

Best practices:

• Prepare the complete bound script before the shooting commences
  • Frequent and huge alterations in it the mid way could lead to disasters.
    
• Make entire direction department familiar with the story to get your work easier on location.
  • Explain entire direction department about the importance of not revealing the movie/story details to others.
    
• Inspire all the 24 craft people of your project about the importance of getting this project succeeded. Frequent productive meetings with them yield fantastic results.
  
• Balance yourself emotionally with the up and downs throughout the making of your movie. As a captain, you should be strong to guide others towards the final destination.
  
• To keep the movie alive in the minds of the audience, promotion/branding should be done simultaneously using various media and places like TV, Radio, Internet, Mobile, Daily news papers, Weekly magazines, Malls/Multiplexes, Music outlets, Super markets etc.

Lessons Learnt:

• Resolve all kinds of creative differences with the producer prior to finalization of the bound script. If the differences are not resolved, project gets delayed and effort/ budget will shoot up
  
• Discuss complete script with Director of Photography. Have shot division and story board ready before shooting commences. Shot division might change on location but our home work will save 30% of time/effort during shooting. This is almost equivalent to 30% of shooting budget.
  
• Start your project only after gaining necessary financial strength to produce and release the movie within six months from the start date. I feel ‘Dosa’ is tasty when served hot.
  
• Pre-production, Production, Post-Production and Promotion are the four stages before the movie releases. Finalize the promotion budget while calculating entire project cost initially. In my observation, 90% of new comers are calculating the budget till production. This results in huge delays in post production and release. And remember! You will not get buyers for small movies made by new comers. So, you should be ready to release on your own.
  
• Never show the movie output to any outsider other than your crew member for opinion. A ticket-buyer’s perspective is to enjoy the movie, whereas, the guest’s perception is to find out some flaws. Generally guest watches the movie as the decider of the film fate, his opinion may hurt you and lead to unnecessary changes in the movie. In my observation in last 6 years, none of the ‘decider’ saved movie from a disaster.
  
• 90% of the cases the audience reaction in public theatre is quite opposite to the ‘deciders’ who watch in preview theatres. To my knowledge, the reactions are entirely opposite for Shiva, Geethanjali, Money and Anand etc…

Note: Your own resolution is more important than any ideas from me or others, to succeed. Just do what you love and love your beliefs; success comes naturally. Please just use the back button of your browser if you feel bored of this article. If you love, you can drop me a word at sreedhar.madhura at gmail dot com

Special note to brand new comers: If you get in to movie making without proper plan (that means aavesham tho dhigithe..) Producer loses money… Director loses career…!Kalaamathalli second chances chaala kashtamga isthundhi….!!!