The young filmmakers in Mollywood may take pride in new-generation tag. But the producers seem to be unimpressed by their new-generation methods and have fired a salvo alleging that many of them lacked work ethics and professionalism.
While his new flick One By Two , touted to be a thriller, failed to give any surprise to the viewers, its young director Arunkumar Aravind had a rather rude surprise after the film’s release when producer B. Rakesh approached producers’ association grumbling about his director.
Arunkumar was charged with stretching the shooting schedule, bringing huge loss to the producer. Not one to take the producers’ association’s diktat to not cooperate with him in the future, Arunkumar approached the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA).
FEFKA leadership wanted to find an amicable solution but could not take up the issue amid the controversy over the release of the movie Mr. Fraud . The grapevine has it that the federation could not rebut the views made by the producers as they had received similar complaints earlier about the director.
A senior filmmaker said many among the new crop of actors and directors seemed not serious about their job. They often turn up late for shooting. “I have seen actors turning up late for shooting. For many, it’s like going on a picnic,” he said.
As it often happens, the controversy has led to a barrage of allegations. Many directors have now blamed young actors for sitting on scripts for months without saying yes or no.
There have been instances when even acclaimed filmmakers had to wait for long only to get a thumbs-down from new-generation actors. Producers are also up in arms against the trend where young actors and technicians demand fat pay cheques when one of their movies clicks at the box-office even if it comes after a string of duds.
Fifty Climaxes
A filmmaker has announced a movie with not just one climax but 50 potential climaxes with no concrete word about what the movie is all about.
But before anyone could think about the weirdness there comes the more quirky proposal.
The filmmaker would only be a ‘facilitator” and it would be the audience who would be deciding the climax and the course of the narration.
“The audience will be given several options on how the story should proceed. For instance, they can either adopt a romantic comedy line or opt for a suspense thriller 15 minutes after the movie begins,” said young filmmaker Vipin Krishnan who is dreaming of entering the record books by taking up this challenge through his debut movie Karma , which is to be made in English.
The filmmaker claimed that gadgets would be given to viewers watching the movie in big screen to select their options.
“But our main focus is to popularise the film through internet and DVDs,” he said.
Whether he enters the record books or not, one has to accept this novelty in filmmaking where the fate of the film is strung to the audience rather than the filmmaker.
