How not to make a movie

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1 Get a friend of a friend to submit your script — written by candlelight over a decade — to a production company which is desperate for ‘content’.

It won’t be read though. If it is, you might wail for the rest of your life that your storyline was pinched. Of course, you won’t say that you’ve pinched it from Hollywood hits yourself, like a combo of Titanic and Avatar. The sinking ship is rescued by singing green goblins from outer space. Title it Gaa: One.

2 By Merlinesque magic, you’re seated besides Ronnie Screwvala on an airflight. He’s interested in your concept about a poor farmer who becomes a computer whiz and starts Boogle. He’ll want to know if you’ve talked to Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir Khan, or all three, and their reaction. You apologise, “I haven’t, not yet, but all the Khans are very kind people, it’s only the media that…” Before the sentence finishes, Mr Screwvala will have changed his seat, even if it means shifting to economy.

3 A Smiley No. 1 producer has gone bananas and ananas about your comedy, without even realising that it’s a remake of his banner’s Govinda hit of yore. “Phantastic, phantastic!” he’ll rave. Govinda and Chunky Pandey even come immediately on board. The mahurat is all set, and then you’re informed, sorry some problem. Govinda wants one of his many nephews to direct. So who the @%*! are you.

4 Sip coffee with a wannabe producer who has returned after centuries from the US, UK, Canada, Hong Kong (you name it) or is the owner of a shady IT company wishing to invest in the entertainment industry. His only condition is that a girl he knows (“but nothing like that’s going on between us... she’s from good family”) should be the heroine. He gets the casting couch, you don’t.

5 Alternately, freshly-baked producers will ask you if the heroine you have selected is free for a trip to Goa. He would like to check out if she can do justice to her role. Or model before him in a bikini. “Don’t mind please,” you’re told. “I will take good care of your heroine.” Wink, wink.

6 Control your instincts. Don’t throw a shoe at this bikini-starved himbette.

7 Submit your script to NFDC. They once made ‘meaningful’ movies and what you want to do is very Govind Nihalaniesque with shades of Quentin Tarantino. But at NFDC, you don’t know who the chairperson is. At the time of going to press it was Om Puri… or was it Ramesh Sippy?... never mind.

8 Rewrite your story-screenplay into a theatre play. Sorry, performance bookings at the Prithvi are booked for a year… or two... and at the NCPA, the rates may compel you to pawn your wife’s jewellery, if you’re still married that is.

9 The producer wants certain changes in the script as suggested by his very intelligent daughter. Danger: don’t even go there. The daughter still hasn’t passed school.

10If you see that nothing is geared towards making a ‘good film’ (wazzat?) — that you don’t have a location to shoot in, a set designer or even actors — a couple of days before the shoot, just drop it like a hot batata. That’s what I did, see, and lived to tell the tale.