Film Issues !

Hi just had completed the article for a friend so thought to post it here.

Other than the film issues there is one very important question that that does film making requires proper education? Till few months back I used to think no. Just assisting a director for few years is enough. No doubt by spending time with an experienced filmmaker we will learn to handle the equipments but the art of writing a script, creating tensions, engaging audience, examining the quality of story all this requires proper film education. Today filmmaking is not only an art but it is a science which need proper education to get polished and only then one can be skilled in it. I remember one of my teachers said that if I want to be a filmmaker I should never enjoy a movie, in fact I should see it critically and analyze that what are the reasons for it’s success of failure. The critical analysis though will not help us in making any set rules of success, but surely will guide us to lot of things.

The story lines of Lolly-wood films need to improve their story lines. Pakistan is truly a rich country in terms of literature and there isn’t lack of good story lines, but the only issues is that people who invest money in film industry these days are making films for the class which has no quality aesthetic sense. Writers like haseena Moin, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Anwar Maqsoon have the potential to write high quality scripts but again the the soule of a film is money which is now a days in the hands of wrong people.

Another issue which has always been considered a big big issues is technical assistance. From the last 5 years I have been seeing filmmakers crying on the issue that INDIA has the good technical resources and we don’t have it. The only thing I can do is beat my head to the door. I have only one simple example to prove that a film never needs a high quality camera first. The first and the most important element is the story. The example is of the superb British comedy film “Clerk” which was shot on 16mm and originally had a poor picture quality but still it is ranked the best 50^th comedy film of all time British Comedy films.

Even if we talk abut our films, we see big names like TERE PYAAR MAIN which was a huge hit. Then films like “CHURIAAN” and “MAJAJAN” made history. All of them had poor picture quality and were lacking in high quality technicalities but still they pulled the crowed.

So I personally believe that the film makers instead of crying on technical issues, should focus on good stories.