Nothing could be more true than the line from an ad campaign which says, “An idea can change your life.” My entire life and career are a testimony of that, both in positive and negative ways.
It could range from a film like Satya sparked by an idea like, “We only hear about gangsters when they kill or when they die. But what do they do in between?”, or RGV ki Aag coming from an idea like, “What if Sholay happens in today’s times?” We all know the sum-effect of those two ideas. But at a point, I was madly excited with them, particularly with the Sholay idea. Irrespective of the strengths and the results of those two ideas, they changed the course of my life through different routes.
Whether I will screw up my next film based on an idea which is like Aag or make a cult classic like Satya, I can’t foretell. No one can. All I can say is that about 200 people continue to work non-stop for six months to execute the ideas which keep popping up in my mind. This includes a marketing team which breaks its head on how to best sell and encash my idea in the film trade. Indeed, my detractors keep wondering how I can still keep on doing exactly what I want to. The secret is the Idea and my ability to make the people who matter sense the potential in my project.
Many people think I work on multiple films at the same time which is not true at all. What is true is that I do work on multiple ideas. Each idea is developed into a script and then into a film. Now every film can take its own sweet time but it brews continuously in my head and the heads of various writers where I have planted them. For instance, I had the idea of Sarkar five years before it happened. Then there is the idea of a film called Ek which I have nursed for the last 10 years but don’t know when and if it will ever happen. The beauty of each idea is that it is like a ball of energy waiting to go kinetic.
Recently I told an ad agency that I could not accept their offer because I can’t even think of directing a 30-60 second ad with a creative given by someone else and to suit the requirement of their client. Instead I offered to make a full-length film with the product’s name.
For example, I said I would make a movie titled Lux. It would be about a beautiful village girl who uses the soap so she can become a film star some day… and she actually does. She even models for the soap in the film’s climax. The ad guys were zapped with the very idea of an entire film which is an ad.
Whether I will make that film called Lux or not is a secondary point, but I just felt like bragging about the power of an Idea. And they were impressed.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/sites/default/files/The Asian Age/aos2_2.JPG
