FRUITS OF LABOUR

With the release of my latest film 'Vinmeengal', what a packed fortnight this has been for me!  As I key in this column in the rare pin-drop silence of my usually noisy house filled with people's conversations and TV voices otherwise, this feels like the calm-after-the-storm with just the pigeons for company as they flap their wings, settle on my living room's sun shade outside and coo their morning sounds. The occasional auto rickshaw sound zooming past my street reminds me of my friendly neighborhood auto guys who've asked for my movie's tickets for them and their families. And not to forget, with my Labrador pet snoozing away to glory after his full course vegetarian morning meal, this serenity lends a perfect aura to fondly recall the crucial promotional days gone by.

Every day had its share of excitement and anxiety in varying proportions depending on how smooth the events unfolded during the course of the day. That would start with dutifully checking out my morning newspapers for print ads, press releases, write-ups, previews, photos and reviews of the film. We had to even out all kinds of media and attend all possible promos to communicate about our film and its message and that process is still on-going. When you think you're safe scoring a decent three stars on an average out of five, you'll also have a few frank souls pointing out the short-comings and areas of improvement. This is also appreciable when it is constructive except that you need to have the courage and open-mindedness to take the criticism in the same spirit. When you're just an audience for a film or not part of the industry as such, it's just a matter of browsing through the pages for general talk about the movie and move on. But when your own film releases, the anxiety over the film's outcome and response eats your brains out. You can only hope that the media loved the film at the press show organized for them prior to the release and writes favorably enough to intrigue the readers to catch it in the theatres. With at least two to three films releasing every Friday, the film's spotlight is on it just for that one week until the next lot of films get loaded. Unless of course it's a film with Super stars, Supreme stars and Shining stars, the rigorous promotional life cycle is limited to a fortnight at the most.

What follows next is the inundated calls and messages on the day of the release from all your friends, well-wishers, colleagues and relatives which you quietly enjoy attending to. The reach that advertising and mass media publicity gives you and your film, hits a new high and it not only brings you back in the news but also creates the nervousness about meeting their expectations when they watch the film. Your twitter account will see a spate of followers added, your facebook account would be flooded with new friend requests and messages posted on the fb wall from people you've not been in touch with. Radio stations and film related websites would involve discussions, interviews and songs playing on their channel / web page. In your own small world, this feeling is almost like a little girl at her birthday party basking in all the glory, showered with gifts, wishes and spoilt by the sheer attention she gets, for a short period nevertheless.

That my dear reader is only the glossy part of the story. As an actor what you can control is the choice of projects, performance of the role offered to you and promotion of the film earnestly. But beyond that, the success or failure of a film depends on a lot of other factors. The most important being the content of the film and its execution as a team work. So taking that for granted for any film to do well, this release was more like a reality check for those dreamy starry eyes that didn't see other facts until now since my earlier films had stars or backed by powerhouses in media. When a well-made film doesn't have the backing of a big production house or established stars, it is an arduous task to get the right number of theatres and shows. Lesser number of shows means reaching lesser number of audiences. Much as we've seen small films with upcoming actors hit the success note, it was always backed by a powerful distributor / media giant or an influential producer or a successful cameraman turned director. So with a fresh young team with the three talented technicians- director, cinematographer and music composer- making their debut, it was a challenging task to have a relatively good release and fill the theatres with almost 90% occupancy in the opening week-end. What played a significant role in bringing the chunk of audience to the theatres was a combination of pre-release promos, post release publicity and the more important and credible word-of-mouth spread by the audience who had seen the film. When theatre owners demanded star value and restricted the number of shows for such new attempts in Tamizh cinema, the audience that always appreciates meaningful cinema came to the rescue by filling the halls and making all the effort we put into the film worth every drop of sweat and penny invested. When people known to you call and inform that the audience gave a standing ovation at the end of the film, all the struggles and roadblocks we faced in making and releasing the film tempts us to repeat this all over again.

No-brainer masala films are made dime a dozen all the time. The biggest victory for a socially relevant film made in a commercial easy-to-understand format is truly not in the collections at box office or winning awards. It lies in the impact it creates in the society in a positive way and bringing about a useful change somewhere. From that point of view, a reputed school's principal, after watching 'Vinmeengal' that narrates a child's spirit to live life despite his condition of cerebral palsy, has decided to have an inclusion policy in their admission process from next academic year onwards to give an equal chance to such children in their regular school itself. What more can our team ask for!

If you've sincerely attempted in churning out what you can modestly claim as good cinema, if you've promoted the film in all the right venues, if the theatre authorities see merit in the occupied shows and retain or increase the screening for a couple of weeks more, there's a good chance that the film would have served its purpose. Our efforts in making an honest film and supporting the reach through a multi-pronged promotional spree has been made and now the rest is left to the audience to decide the result of our labour. There couldn't have been a better occasion to understand Lord Krishna's advise to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita and the significance of His quote in today's context: "Thou has a right to action, but only to action, never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of thy works be thy motive".