A big budget film is on sets currently and it is surrounded by a lot of hype and hoopla. One hears at the scripting stage, the production house had asked at least 70 versions of dialogues from different writers out of which the director had filtered and picked one from here and one from there. Why is this happening? There is a serious dearth of good writers and also in some instances, the first half is written by one set of people and somebody else comes in to complete the second half and also to take the credit. There is also a great disparity in remuneration. While the writers and ghost writers put in great deal of effort, and if the film turns out to be a hit, they get a marginal rise in income by a mere five lakh. The director not only takes away the credit for writing but hikes his remuneration by a couple of crores. These frustrated budding writers are now aiming to be directors. It is not tough considering the fact that many big films are failing and producers are now opting for small or medium budget movies and these writers are in the queue to wield the megaphone.
There are some promising names among them doing the rounds now: Sai Madhav Burra shot to fame with Krishsnam Vande Jagadgurum , Gopala Gopala , Malli Malli Idi Rani Roju , and he is now writing for Gautamiputra Satkarni, Katthilantodu . Sai Madhav is from a theatre background and is being hailed as the next Trivikram Srinivas. Another few films he too would change gears. If Cinema Chupista Mama changed Raj Tarun’s fortune, the man behind his success is Prasanna and this is his first film. The writer from Machilipatnam says he had no interest as such in movies and terms his writings as aakali nerpinchina paatalu . He however has no plans to direct immediately, but wants to establish himself as a writer first. “I believe in writing completely for the film and I don’t like it or agree when someone steps in to contribute their versions. Imagine people appreciating you for the work which is not yours.”
Vikram Siri and Deepak Raj are synonymous with Race Gurram . They started as assistant directors but moved to writing for Konchem istam konchem kastam , andthey work as a team. Vikram says, “There is nothing called dialogue writing, when you write screenplay it comes with dialogue.” Vikram is soon making his debut as a director in a star hero film. Deepak is working on Ram Charan’s Dhruva and comes from Yash Raj Films. They do not want to be projected as writers despite having a bunch of films that they are working on. Vikram adds, “There is a serious shortage of writers, I am directing my first film but I am still hunting for a dedicated writer.”
Bhavani Prasad from Machilipatnam is a dialogue writer and his career took off from Seema Sastry . Given a chance he would any day direct but currently his films Jakkanna and Chuttalabbayi are ready for release. His brother ‘Diamond’ Ratna Babu also carved a place for himself, he is more famous for his dialogues laced with double entendre for instance Aadorakam Veedorakam . Carthyk and Arjun also work as a team, they began with Dochay and also were associated with Sudheer Verma’s and Virinchi’s Uyyala Jamapala . Both these engineering graduates are dialogue writers and have actually learnt writing after stepping into the industry. “It is a long way to go but we are getting work. We work on mostly out of the box stories and our forte is convincing the audience with such ideas which is usually not acceptable.” There are other writers as well like Swami, Hari and Madhu Srinivas but it will take a while for them to become star writers. There are many budding writers with interesting scripts but they do not get a chance to break into a good banners. With template movies being passe, it is time medium and small budget producers and directors give a push to the fledgling talent.
