Desi Train

There was a time when news of all forthcoming releases would come from Jignesh, Paresh and Ganesh. No, they aren’t Tridevs of any sort, but three brothers who ran the video store next to my apartment, during my days in Bombay.

These days I have it fairly easy in winning bets from Tapan, Ketan and Chetan over what movie is coming out next Friday. Thanks to the internet which provides faster information to me, than Tapan - Ketan - Chetan’s DVD supply-wallah. If you are left wondering who the fuck are these new three entities, then you need not think too far, my dear blog reader. These three entities are brothers running the Desi Store next to my house in Orange County. Watching these three here is like playing a copy of those three brothers back in Bombay. Is there some kind of a law that wherever oz goes to get his Bollywood brunch, there will be three brothers running the store? What next? Shamu, Dhamu and Kamu in Australia?

So when I was told by the 3 brothers to watch out for a DVD release of “Sardar”, I was flabbergast. Made in 1993, I ended up watching this movie on Television, I guess two years later. This movie was again, one of those gems, which went unnoticed, courtesy, no finance or strategy to market products catering to a “restricted” audience.

“Restricted” audience? I also hear these days a new term called “Cineplex” market. The seventies had a different term for it: “Art”. So cinema which wasn’t “Commercial” was “Art”. The nineties saw a brand new label called “Parallel” cinema and much recently it’s those “Crossover” movies which will only entice the “crossover” audience.

Firstly the fucking product has to be good. No two opinions about that. (ofcourse except when shitty movies have become superhits). The next is proper marketing and launch.

Now before I get into it, I have no fucking clue of how movies are budgeted, their marketing strategies devised and launch plans formulated. But since every Saturday sees me in a movie theater, and every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday sees me insert a disc in my DVD player or switch on the Tele to watch Bollywood news (Fridays are meant for dating, I also have a life you know) – I can tell this – There is no such thing as a launch plan or marketing strategy for most movies.

Here’s what may come close to what actually happens:
Movie nears completion
Shit – we need to confirm release dates and book theaters
If songs are good: Launch songs on all major channels
If songs are not good: Show important spell binding scenes in the movie’s trailer on all channels, which incidentally is the ONLY FUCKING SCENES THAT YOU LIKE IN THE FUCKING WHOLE MOVIE.
Perhaps make a rushy rushy item number, launch on all channels
Press conference
More press conference
Music Launch
Followed by a press conference
Pre release press conference
Premiere
98% probability: Bye Bye to Financers of the movie who used to call themselves “rich”, “wealthy”, “filthy rich”. Now they sit next to oz at Barbad Dhaba off Pioneer and Artesia in Southern California, crying about their good old days and curse the time they ended up having lunch next to a writer/director’s table.

Are we the only fucking insane people who see the stupidity in all this? I firmly believe – for example – “Main Meri Patni aur Woh” by Chandan Arora had a fairly good chance to succeed and rake in the moolah. The product was such that it deserved it. But how many knew about the movie? Was sufficient publicity given to it? And when I say publicity, could we just not show fucking songs, but a brief idea with crystal cutout scenes which can explain to the viewer what the movie is about, in raising interest, expections, “DAMN I FUCKING WANNA SEE THIS MOVIE” emotions.

Correction. Some of the makers do shows previews which give me the same feelings as mentioned above. Yes, dear blog reader. For further proof, try knocking your memory to cache in the previews of a hot sizzling sexy Koena Mitra in Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena.

But movies like Main Meri Patni aur Who, Sardar, Blue Umbrella, Parzania, Jo Bole So Nihaal (ok the last one’s a joke), may need to rethink their launch strategies. Why not try the phased releases quite a few movies in Hollywood follow. Syriana for one has had a phased release. And if you remember not long ago, there came a small cute movie which became a massive hit. For weeks it was only played in theaters in New York and its neighborhood, until it was released first all over the east coast before moving to the west. Yes dear reader, I’m talking of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

If you have one big movie and are confident of the product, a massive hit all theaters in the world release makes complete sense, but if your movie falls under the small, needs time to grow on you kind of subjects, why not give it a shot and put your heads together to formulate a release plan.

The DVD market is big too. The DVD release of “Salaam Namaste” according to reports has broken all sorts of records. Why not put in energy to market the release of your DVDs? And please add in more masala in your fucking “Disc 2” which we haven’t seen or heard in the movie or the pre release behind the scenes interviews.

Until that time, movies like “Sardar” will be like silent, unseen gems. The rest of the world won’t know what its missing, which in oz’s book is quite a tragedy.

On a side note: Basu Chatterjee returns with this movie. What do you think? Is it gonna meet the same fate as Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s “Jhoot Bole Kauwa Kaate”?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 at 10:54 am and is filed under Bollywood, Movies, TV etc..
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