Lollywood is an incredible Pakistan movie district in Lahore, one of the most important cities of the country and capital of Punjab region. To be correct, we should say “it was” a movie district. For a long time nothing has been produced or almost nothing reaches the western coast nowadays.
And it’s really a pity watching its decline as its glorious history began in 1929 when the territory was still Indian. It soon became the basis of the great actor and Pakistan director
Abdur Rashid Kardar; this creative centre has never lost its energy even after the separation from India and its two twin districts (Bombay and Calcutta) it cooperated with contributing to the creation of that extraordinary phenomenon we simply call Bollywood.
Until a few years ago it was almost impossible to understand where the movie came from except for the language, Urdu for Lollywwod and Indi for Bollywood. In the last years the political and social events of those countries have come to an end with the international movie world that until that moment had produced great projects, sometimes even undertitled in English and other languages thus making their formats closer to the big public. As for Bollywood, even in Lollywood the main tracks got much more success than the movies themselves and they remained one of the most important factor for the success and quality of the production. There were good actors and professionals, different reviews and websites followed their stories with a huge number of readers. Since a year everything shut down, and without being polemic, we would like to complain for the loss of such an original, wonderful and undervalued heritage.
It has not been talked so much here around but the S.A.I.F.F., celebrated a couple of weeks ago in New York (the big town a little bit lab and workshop together), is one of the most interesting world movie event.
It’s a festival dedicated to the Southasian film-makers that work in the United States. The countries interested by this event are India, by sure, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and above all the Indian Diaspora. It’s the celebration of the cross-over movie, a sort of inter-ethnic and bipolar marriage, that in the last few years has proposed different good works (lots of them pointed out in this blog) able to attract public from anywhere to make it closer to different kinds of reality.
During this sixth edition, where everything has been showed, rewarded and reviewed, the most ambitious prizes have been won by the actor and producer Sunil Shatty for his interpretation in “Red Alert the War Within”, based on the true story of a poor worker (Narasimha) become a terrorist in order to give a better future to his sons, that lives the contradictions and the ethical, moral and spiritual conflicts of his land and the whole world.
The prize for the best direction has been given to Anjali Menon for “Manjadikuru” , the story of a woman, her ideals, faith, perseverance and courage. Two projects that would have been a great chance for product placement, to propose to different and faraway people a philosophy of brand able to unify and communicate as much as these pioneers from the West Coast. Men and women full of ideals, courage and creativity, able to give us some fresh new air… as well as a bucketful of cold water.
Bollywood produces more movies and has more viewers than any other cinema district in the world, even more than Hollywood. It’s quite far, at least this was true until some times ago. The Hindi format is spreading out and getting closer to the western one. Moreover the numbers of the viewers and the producing quality of the movies are extremely interesting for all the world. For this reason (and even for the reason that I really appreciate that particular mood), the Bollywood productions deserve more visibility.
The GS Entertainment for example, is an interesting production studio in Bombay: these days it is finishing the post-production of Lamhaa: an action movie that will be out in December. The set is in Kashmir, once known as an earthly paradise, now at the center of guerrillas, political intrigues, spying and illegal affairs. The everlasting fight between bombs and reason is going to sacrify a territory, Kashmir, that on the contrary could become the spiritual focus point of the world. Quite a hard story about Lamhaa and we know how much difficult this could be for a placement action. Much easier with comedies, teen movies and sentimental movies. But if it’s true that a brand should communicate some values and if it’s true that the movie is even a way to present reality, so far that some brands bored by the usual glossy magazines, can find this kind of hindi movie such a faraway but charming dimension, and a future partner with incredible potentialities.
For those that love this kind of cinema this will be a never forgetting summer. For a couple of months RAI UNO has been proposing great and very recent Bollywood movies, sentimental comedies (the most traditional and known kind) with the title of “Loves with…turbans”. Unfortunately for some reasons these movies have been cleaned out of all the dancing, the set design and the songs that on the contrary belong and are an important character of all these productions that normally last more than 3 hours…but it’s better than nothing.
Even in these cases it is worthwhile the opinion of some critics that believe the summer programmes better than those of prime time during the year.”Loves with.. turbans” is a great occasion to meet another kind of cinema though with a great tradition, that for some time has been trying to westernize its products to propose all over the world. “Hearts on air” (Salaam Namastee), for example, is a fresh 2005 comedy on air last Wednesday and set in Sidney though speaking of quite unknown subjects for the Indian cinema such as the extramarital pregnancy, the cohabitation and the independence from the family. But above all a kiss between the lovers, something common for us but not so much for the Indian common sense of modesty.
With this new generation of comedies, the Bombay cinema has begun to raise up its number of spectators, that in the best case reaches the billion of people (considering only the movie and not the DVD release or the TV schedule). It’s clear that some of the most open-minded Companies have thought about this: they have fully provided with clothes and accessories. Diesel and Adidas above all.
The way has been opened and lots of Companies could and should follow it. For info: paolo (at) placement-post.com
Fashion”, the last movie of Madhur Bhandarkar released last October in the Indian theatres was talked about even before its “debut”. The phenomenon is still lasting and this time because a declaration of its producer that has disclosesd that the 40% of its budget (220 millions of rupie) has been covered in advance by contracts of product Placement and Brand Integration. The screenplay and the cast were perfect (with stars like Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Mugdha Godse and Arjan Bajwa) but the numbers are however important. Six international brands such as Reebok, Lenovo, Sunsilk, Kimaya, Cellucom and LG have offered 85 millions of rupie (1.270.000 of euros ab.) to appear with evidence but with respect to the plot and the photography of the film. A Manager of the production has underlined that the Sponsors have taken their decision with great attention evalueing any detail of the operation. The Indian advertisign Agencies, continues the Manager, are discovering only now the potentialities of this instrument underlining its efficacy in a separate way with respect to other advertising operations done by the same Client.
On the contrary the strategy is going to the opposite side, as Product Placement and Brand Integration give by certain a huge help to marketing mix but they are not the instruments that alone can solve the problem of visibility.
That’s why the main sponsors of “Fashion” have organised a creative utilization campaign to enlarge and make last the effects of product Placement, thanks to events (obviously connected to the Fashion world) and crossing advertising.
Madhur Bhandarkar tells us that it’s over the time you just put a product in a film to get visibility, now the brand has to take part in the plot and become a necessary character to get success. And when this happens, the product becomes a piece of the movie history and of the popular culture, for ever fixed in the public memory.
His last movie “Kabul Express” has been such a real worldwide critical success to get The National Award as the Best Debutant Director. Right now Kabir Khan is working on a new movie, still in collaboration with the elegant Movie Production Yash Raj Films, placed both in India as well in the USA. The Partnership between Hollywood and Bollywood is getting closer: the actors go here and there, the Directors move around and the plots cross. Thus nothing strange if the title of the movie is “New York” where it is set. Between the actors John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Irrfan Khan. As in all Bollywood good quality movies, the music is very important (often in India the soundtrack sells more than the movie) and will be composed by Pritam Chakraborty, a composer that has worked a lot in Bollywood, more or less luckily; with a great talent to get talked about and even to surprise when none least expect it. The waiting time for this movie is 6 months more when it will get out in the cinemas almost worldwide.
The Hindi film industry — Business trends and Structural perspectives – a report authored by Sunil Khetarpal, Country Manager, Entertainment and Media Banking, Yes Bank, is to be released by the end of this month. The report gives an interesting insight into upcoming trends in the Hindi film industry.
The report includes key trends in production aspects, film financing, collection trends as also emerging revenue streams through home entertainment and in film placements
Since 2001, there has been an increase of 8 per cent and 48 per cent in number of releases per week for all Hindi films and high-grade films respectively. High-grade films (with budgets greater than Rs 20 m) constitute the most relevant Hindi film group as it contributes more than 90 per cent of total business generated by the industry.
Film financing has seen interesting trends, with Non-Traditional Financing Sources (NTFS) gaining ground. Within high-grade films, proportion of films financed from NTFS has increased from 8 per cent in 2001 to 42 per cent in 2004. Also, several investors contributing NTFS for film production are new entrants, which explain their higher propensity to fund films with smaller budgets or smaller capital outlays. Co-productions have seen a rise from 3 in 2001 to 15 in 2004
Over the next 18 to 24 months, use of Product Placement and Brand Promotions (PPBP) in Hindi films is expected to grow further towards Rs 1000 million, from it’s current share.
Write me if interesting in Bollywood Product Placement Planning p.latini@oratorio.biz
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