My interaction with Anish

I caught up with Anish, who directed Avakai Biryani in the Coffee day at Banjara hills.
I was late by 20 mins... i was little disappointed due to my late entry. Neverthless we started on a subject that was little bit of a thriller and romantic comedy... There was such a high level of disturbance in the shop.. i had to shout .. the narration was in bits and pieces though there was a script written, i was hardly able to explain anything to him. Story was not so appealing to him, his comments was its not so captivating...
Then I have started on different subject which is a mixture of Sivaji and Guru, as i usually tell it, but the treatment is different.
Initial comment when hearing about the story line was the story line is very noble.
When i started narrating it was so disastrous that anish commented saying he tried showing some social elements in Avakai biryani and it did not worked. His next comment was Who will come to the theatre and like to listen to the lecture. Yes no body will come to the theatre to listen to a lecture, probably i was narrating it like a lecture i dont know. But my feel was, only those scenes like the panchayat scene in Avakai biryani clicked in the movie rather than head aching love story... where chemistry never worked. I thought of telling the same, but because of his seniority i just remained silent. There is this pre-defined notion i was able to see in him that complex stories are not understood by the audience. Stories should be simple like godavari and anand.
He only had the time to listen to the narration in parts in a busy environment.
When a story writer gives a complex subject with 3 stages defined to a director along with the scene sequence, it basically depends on the directors calibre and editors skill sets to visualize it in an interesting way. This was a contradiction at the end of the discussion where i was told it is not visually appealing. I was not in a position to visualize anything there apart from some coffee and sandwitches in the half an hour time given to me.

Here are my learnings after the interaction which might be useful for other script writers starting their journey

• Before starting the script narration find out how much time can the listener spare - if it is less than 30 mins dont talk anything about the script.
• Ask what type of subject is he ready to listen, love story, action drama or what ever it is ask the listener about his interests.
• Story narration can be ok in busy hang outs but script narration should be only in a calm location with atleast an hour and half to spare
• Know more about the experiences of the directors and after every scene take the inputs from the listener, so that you are sure that he understands the things and you are on the same frequency.

Pradeep
Bzinez.com