Writing, singing, dancing, and acting (stage drama) are all inexpensive to perform, but cinema which combines all these art forms and films it on a camera is very very expensive. Why? Decoding film business needs understanding about the unique aspects of cinema and how it stands out from other business.
Film Financing for making a story into a movie is not possible through banks, because of its unpredictable revenue model. (Funding is possible for ancillary movie business like building theaters or a building a studio but not for turning a story into a movie). There are also several other reasons why it’s hard to fund even for an established production house.
Probability of a film’s success.
Success rate of film industry is 6%, 94 films out of 100 movies will flop(as per 2017 industry reports)
In any conventional business there is a scope for a low quality product/service to survive among high quality products. In cinema its 1’s and 0’s. It’s a hit or miss. There is no place for anything else. Very good movies are called HIT and have good collection. All other categories like good, average, okay, poor, good attempt, different approach all fall into the same category of making losses. A film’s gross collection is not based on the amount of money invested in creating a film but based on the amount of value it has created, “An unique experience for the audience”. That’s why in the film industry you see a low budget movie grossing more than a high budget movie or making better profits.
Exceptions to the above point for few star value movies, who can break even with a very bad story, they do make good movies but the success is not based on the story. That’s why they are called as stars and producers consider this as a safe route. Even in such cases, A producer who relies totally on a star and fail to make a movie which creates an unique experience have made terrible losses at the box office.
How and who adds value: Welcome to the world of Director.
In traditional business, The CEO or the head of the company who has a vision about his company would have direct control over the finance. He would decide where to spend, when to expand, whom to recruit, whereas in cinema the person who spends or the owner of the product (The Producer) does not have creative control on the final product as much as the director. This is where investing in filmmaking gets complicated and corporates struggle to make a mark in the film industry.
The director who has a creative vision, need not care about the financial implications of a movie. The producer continues to pump in money to get the final product and he cannot judge or decide movie experience when it’s half baked. Imagine the pressure of a producer who is investing on a project by funding through his own or borrowed money at higher interest rate for the vision of someone else’s story assuming it will make a profit with an industry success rate of 6% – It’s close to gambling.
Producer’s Fear and Director’s Ego
In Indian cinema there is a prerequisite for a director to be a screenwriter. Story, screenplay, direction comes as a package and they are placed as a burden on the director’s shoulder. On the outside it looks like the director is multi-tasking, but in reality because of these role mix up the pressure on the producer increases. Skills required to be a writer and director are totally different, for some reason this has been mixed in the Indian film industry. When a director directs his own script the access for a producer to change the script is very less.It’s a tough job to weave a story with different characters and write a compelling a screenplay. The writer-director does heavy lifting in creating a story by facing a blank page and scratching his head for several months, in some cases several years. After all these hard work , the writer-director’s creative ego is boosted and is in upbeat mood. When the writer gets a chance to direct his story, there is a very less chance to adapt or change the script based on the feedback from the producer or technical team. A writer would have gone through several versions from start to finish , he would have travelled in many different paths to create this final version. Any feedback to a writer-director will be unheard, because he thinks others do not know the struggle in making this story, this way. Which could be 80% right but when someone listens to the story they would talk about the rest 20% which is not good and needs to be fixed, this hurts the writer’s ego and fails to accept. They think listener does not understand it or he would challenge them to prove wrong and go ahead with filming the movie. A listener may or may not be smarter than a writer but they come with some fresh perspective and it always gives a new dimension and mistakes are clearly visible for them, which a director would refuse to look into it because of the creative control he has in his film making. A writer-director’s combined creative control seals the producer’s entry into creative perspective from pre-production through post-production. Giving director the complete control over the entire film-making process, a producer is at the mercy of director and fears any control/restriction over the production process may hamper the final product.
The Producer’s, Hero: The Writer.
The Screenwriter – A Truly Professional screenwriter is the difference between a good movie and a bad movie. In Hollywood great emphasis and importance are given to screenwriter and qualification process of a screenplay, Hollywood agents are reading thousands of a screenplay to find out what works.
Typically in Hollywood, a production house selects a script, after few discussions with the screenwriter, the producer may decide to rewrite certain parts of the story with a new or same screenwriter, A director may be brought in at this stage of re-writing or at a later stage. The script may change anywhere between 40% to 60%. Directors also have the right to change or use multiple screenwriters to create a compelling screenplay. The scenes may change but they would try to keep the original writer’s vision intact. In the process of re-writing, writer director and producer everybody understands the intent of the story and takes a collaborative approach to fine tune the screenplay and perfects it until every single piece of the story works. The director does not have a ego but he challenges the writer to write better. A writer rewrites and director tries to get the vision of the writer on screen. The producer’s access to this creative meetings makes him well informed about his final output of the product and movies financial needs to execute it at the right time and cost. Lots of effort goes in at this stage. Creating a compelling screenplay is equivalent to launching a rocket. The desired result is ejecting the audience into the orbit of story world to have an unique experience different from their daily gravitational pull. When the story fails in any one aspect,even for a single moment, the audience will fall back to their own lives. Gravity is unforgiving. That’s the reason why good,average and bad movies grosses similar amounts and fall back to make equal losses, Only exceptional movies make profits, irrespective of their budget.
Once you launch a successful story rocket with a satisfying experience for audience, similar or know characters and situations are used to create sequels under the same brand of characters like James bond and Star Wars and Harry potter. The audience would consider this as a better chance to survive in these rockets than boarding an unknown rocket.
Director’s Villan: Producers commercial perspective.
While a director’s ego can create problems for the producers, the producers inability to understand the vision of the story and directors intent can lead to fatal results. Even if the story is made perfect, the pilot on the seats of director and producer should drive together to reach the destination, Fear of failure can prompt producers to take wrong routes and force commercial aspects in a movie, this can sometime spoil the intent of the story and result in terrible failure. Producers can also take the same route of success and force directors to make a movie in a certain way. Most of the producers look at the past success and thinks about making something similar to it.
How often do you see a producer who understands the value of a story from a well written screenplay. Imagine a movie about a person who has physical and mental challenges and his journey from childhood to becoming a father. Not many producers can think of it interesting until Tom hanks and Robert zemeckis and Eric Roth are brought together to create a movie like Forrest gump, which grossed US$677 million worldwide during its theatrical run. Making a movie is not hard, identifying a meaningful story and bringing the right people on board is the hardest part.
It is not just the producer-director-writer relationship that makes film-making process complex, there are several other relationships that is needed to complete a film, Singers, Music Director, choreographers, actors and many more, everyone creates their own equations with each other. Yes it is rocket science. Every creative person has their own creative ego, fans and fame that has to be maintained. It’s a combination of creative people working together with high ego levels and end up making a successful/failure movie at the cost of a producer.
A collaborative approach with all the creative people working together to bring out the true intent of the story under the able leadership of a collaboative director mentored by the producer, will see success.
