A Way to Win in Cinema – 3

About me

Before entering the subject I would like to tell something about me. I think it is needed here.

I was born in Tamilnadu and brought up in Kerala. From the childhood itself I was very much interested in films. I have to thank my father mainly for this. He used to go to the weekly market in our village every Thursday. All who seeing films in theatre will understand the importance of Thursdays.

Usually new films will be started to show in theatres from Friday. New releases will be shown in town and city theatres. And in the last century, many films ran for many weeks in those theatres. But in the villages, the films will be changed every week. We were lived in a small village near by the border of Tamilnadu and Kerala.

There is a little bigger village, three kilometres away from our village. There is a theatre. New films will be shown there from Friday. But usually it will run only up to Monday only. And from Tuesday and to Thursday old films will be shown.  If a film runs for a full week in that theatre, it will be a super hit film, that run hundred days in towns and cities. Anyhow only good films will be shown in village theatres every Thursday.

My father told me about this strategy. And after completing the purchase from the weekly market every Thursday, he used to go to the theatre. And he used to bring me also to see the films. He taught me the story telling and other aspects of films.

We were in Palakkad district in Kerala, sharing border with Coimbatore in Tamilnadu. Usually Tamil and Malayalam films will be shown from Friday in ‘our’ theatre. And old Tamil films, popular English and Hindi films of that time will be shown from Tuesday. So, I got chance to all the four language films from the childhood itself.

After I joined in the college, I started to see films in Palakkad town. this town has an unique character related to the films. The new films from the four languages will be released in the theatres here. In eighties, I take a survey for myself and found that a film running in Palakkad is usual. If one film runs for second week, it is hundred days film in Chennai.

If a film runs for twenty five days, it will be a silver jubilee film in Chennai (Twenty five weeks). In Palakkad twenty five days were silver jubilee. You can see the shields given for many silver jubilees like that, in the popular theatres still now.

I used to see all the released films in Palakkad. My father allowed to see them, provided I studied well. I was a good student at that time, so I had no objections from my father. Thus I saw most of the films in the eighties and the beginning of nineties. Of course it was the golden period of films, especially southern films!

I saw all the films starting from art films made by directors like Aravindan, Bharathan, Balachandar, Rai, Ghatak etc to the mass films directed by IV Sasi, Hariharan, Fazil, SP Muthuraman, P.Vasu, Manirathnam, Dasari, Subhash Gai etc.       

I am a hardcore fan of cinema, even it is either a commercial film of KS Gopalakrishnan or art film of Adoor Gopalakrishnan. And I have a ability to write stories. But I didn’t know anything about the industry practically. So, Initially I came to Chennai and tried to get chance to become a writer-director directly. I met some film personalities and I got a writer chance also. It make me think that getting chance in films is an easy task. So, I returned to village taking a decision to return to Chennai as a producer soon.

As usual for any common man, my life also had twists and turns and I couldn’t earn money as I thought. And cinema is the main reason for all falls. So, I quit my works in the village and returned to Chennai on 1^st January 1996. This time with a concrete decision to stay in the industry until got the success. I want to concentrate on Tamil films And this time came to Chennai with wife and children. (In the meantime that only happened in correct time in my life).

I got chance to work as an assistant director in a tv serial and then in a film. Then got promotions step by step to associate director, writer, co-director etc. Meanwhile I worked in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. But most of the time I spent in writing many subjects and earning for family. For that also I worked in the industry, as a translator, censor script writer etc. So, I couldn’t get chance to direct film till date.

Meantime I started Film Literature Confluence (Details in the parallel posts about the confluences). Now I started to produce and direct my debut film.

I want to tell whatever I learned from my experience through these years to my followers.   Really not to one who just live in cine field or like to win in cinema, but to one who love cinema and ready to anything, experiment and hard work to prove himself. I hope this articles will be useful for them to find the right way.