Still doing it my way
Tags:
t has been close to four, maybe five, years that I’ve been on the net. First it was blogging, now it is tweeting. The main reason why it had taken me a bit of time to get to the net was, firstly, that I am a complete net illiterate. And secondly I never cared to.
Then I thought let me just try once and submitted myself to netizens to ask questions, take digs, ridicule me and update me on how much they love or hate my films.
Films are just a medium. If you have an idea which you wish to express, you can either talk about it or write a book or make a film, write a blog or a column. The mediums might be different but the motivating factor is the primary desire to share your ideas.
But there is a difference between wanting to express and wanting to communicate. Expression, I believe, is a pure art form. It projects an idea in a spontaneous and instinctive burst of creativity without any motivation or an agenda. Chances are that it will connect to the receiver or go completely over his head. It can impress, irritate, offend, bore or be completely misunderstood, depending upon the receiver’s sensibility, intelligence, background knowledge, state of mind. And above all, upon their own individual emotional experiences in life.
Films, by the virtue of their existence, have to be commercial art as various people’s time, money, effort and expectations are involved. Often, I hear this question, “How come a filmmaker does not realise that he’s making a bad film?” The truth is that the filmmaker is the last person to know. On the Net, people have the platform to rant and rave, use every kind of insult and praise, and get absolutely personal. Fine, I have no objection to that. The more abusive, the better, and for me, amusing.
And so I am informed by one netizen, “I truly admire the guts of that lady who broke up with you” to which my immediate response is, “That’s not guts. That’s being smart.” And if someone has the courtesy to ask me of the three biggest mistakes I have made in my life, I can answer, “Shiva, Satya and Rangeela because they created a benchmark. Now I get bashed up for not living up to them. Boo hoo hoo!”
I have sought to use the Net… and this column… to tell the story behind how each film of mine came about and why they turned out to be good, bad or ugly. I have also sought to share my various personal experiences, normal or abnormal.
I continue to share my reactions and thoughts on current and past events, and filmmaking right now and the day before.
I tweet on the cyber highway, and I write this column to be with those who matter: People with an opinion. Whether their comments are positive or negative, it just shows one thing. I can’t be ignored. Whether I am alive.. or become a bhoot on the media highway.
Post new comment