It’s 2009 and the Madras High Court is buzzing with activity. Salem Chandrasekhar, awaits his turn to battle a case that has made him a regular at the court for the past year. The movie producer is determined to win the fight over the rights for the Hindi version of his latest film, Ghajini . The court case, which drains his pocket every day, has the attention of the entire media industry. At the same time, in Salem, his nephew is declared brain dead.
The boy, only 27 years old, is shifted to Chennai and admitted to Apollo, with daily expenses amounting close to a lakh. After ten days, the doctors finally give up. “That evening, we had to make the payment to retrieve the body and take it to Salem. I didn’t have the money,” confesses Chandrasekhar. He called all his friends from the industry, but received no help. “That’s cinema,” he says, dejected.
52-year-old Chandrasekhar, who has studied till class seven, used to work in a wholesale grocery store in Salem for a salary of Rs. 300 till he worked his way to owning dal mills in 1982. In 2001, fascinated by cinema, he commenced film distribution in Salem. Two years later, he broke into the industry as a producer and signed on Dhanush for his first movie, Sullan. His next project , Desiya Nedunchalai , starring the same lead actor, however, was discontinued after two months elapsed and Rs. 25 lakh flowed out in expenses. A common occurrence in the film industry, says the producer, and the money spent in such projects is lost for good.
Subsequently, he signed on actor Bharath for February 14 and actor Suriya for Ghajini . The latter did brilliantly in the box office, but the dispute over the rights that followed, took a big toll on his wife, daughter and entire family. He reflects now, that his mistake was not getting the assurances of the actor and director to sign future movie deals. “But that’s how it’s always been in cinema, nothing is ever given in writing,” says Chandrasekhar.
Usually, it is the producer who approaches a reputed director for a film. The director suggests an actor who would fit the script and the producer tries to negotiate with said actor to sign him on. “They don’t tell us the story first; the producer only hears it after the actor does,” he reveals. The producer calculates the market value of the actor-director combination and approximates the profit he can make based on the budget given by the director. “It’s a big victory just to get the combination right,” he says. Once the dates have been committed, the producer waits for the cast and crew to come together. Whatever is spent during those days, according to him, is a wager.
The directors hold story discussions in foreign countries, or Ooty or even somewhere within the city, and he says the costs for these sessions are also borne by the producer. Yet, he gets to give no creative input. “The command of the cine industry is in the hands of the directors, and actors want to work with famous directors. There’s no respect for the people who put in the money.”
And it’s a lot of money they put in, because producing a film is expensive business. “One day of cinema shooting is equivalent to financing an engagement ceremony, where you invite 300 people home and offer them food. It’s like that three times a day, for how many ever days the shooting takes,” he says, adding that in cinema, calculations have a way of going awry. If an entire cast travels to a different location to film a song for three days and if, for those three days, there is relentless rain, there is nothing that can be done. Travel, accommodation and food expenses come from the pocket of the producer. So needless to say, if shooting is cancelled on a particular day, for whatever reason, it becomes his problem.
Despite the financial risks a producer takes, there are few who receive recognition. “Cinema is a dream world. It will even make the prince a pauper,” says the producer, even as he works on his upcoming movie, Killadi , with Bharath. Despite the turbulence he has faced, he says he does not want to shy away from the industry. “For a producer, experience is of greater value than money,” says Chandrasekhar, who is determined to come back with a bang.
