Bollywood rewrites script

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: Digest this: a production house which plans to make a film approaches a global script-vetting organisation with an office in Asia. A team of ''experts'' sits down to evaluate the profit-making capacity of the proposed project, assessing such improbables as whether the genre will work or be a washout 12 to 18 months later, at the time of its release.<br /><br />Elsewhere, in the newly opened script department of a production house, creative consultants assess a script on the basis of its content.<br /><br />The same production house, earlier, would probably have begun shooting the film with stars and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">masala</span> in place but—incredibly enough—no story.<br /><br />Welcome to the new Bollywood, where a slew of changes has infused a tad more professionalism into the once laidback, star-obsessed working culture.<br /><br />While the transformation has been taking place in the last few years because of factors like corporatisation, additional sources of legit finance and multiplex construction, the results are suddenly apparent.Several ''small'' films without topline stars (<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Jogger''s Park</span>, and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Ab Tak Chhappan </span>to name just two) are being consistently released, and strong scripts and varied themes are slowly becoming the norm in an arena where the formula was once king. As noted scriptwriter Anjum Rajabali says, "The change has been cumulative."<br /><br />In the new Bollywood, you have Ram Gopal Varma''s Factory launching ten films simultaneously, big production houses like Subhash Ghai''s Mukta Arts buying into the economic wisdom of the low-budget film, and other diehards doing a turnaround in philosophy. "There''s a growing understanding that the old order is changing," says Rajabali. "Of course, there''s a lot of fresh young blood contributing to the change, but even the veterans are modifying their outlook."<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br /><br />For instance, Ramesh Taurani''s company, Tips, reportedly puts aside one day a week just to listen to ideas from new writers, and Ramsay Films, Mukta Arts and other production houses have, in the last several months, opened script departments in which the consultants are the likes of director Raj Kumar Santoshi and veteran scriptwriter Sachin Bhowmick. "We are very careful in our selection of subjects," says Ghai.<br /><br />"The script is now more important than the budget."<br /><br />With the script and the non-formulaic theme becoming increasingly momentous, the most obvious vehicle for them is low-budget, low-risk cinema.<br /><br />"It''s a more sound business proposition, '' '' says senior journalist Rauf Ahmed. "If you put in, say, Rs 3 crore into a film, you can recover the cost that much more easily and quickly. For instance, Pooja Bhatt''s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Jism</span>, made at a cost of Rs 3 crore, netted Rs 15 crore." Low-budget quickies are also one of the obvious choices for production houses that have turned ''corporate'' and have to churn out a steady slew of films.</div> </div>