Finally, Kollywood is feeling the heat of the global economic meltdown.

Till recently, whopping budgets, big productions and skyrocketing star prices were the order of the day.Taking stock of the situation, the powerful Tamil Film Producers
Council (TFPC) had chalked out plans to do some cost cutting and revive the sagging fortunes of Kollywood.
As Ramanarayanan, President of TFPC said, “The cost of production has to come down. We were living on excess and the ongoing financial crisis highlights the need to control spending. Even actors should cut down on their fees. We are trying to implement certain changes to make filmmaking profitable.”

Suddenly producers and directors have become smart and are completing schedules on time within the budget. Last week, producer G Dhanajayan and director Kannan completed the first schedule of Kanden Kadhalai starring Bharath and Tamannaah covering close to 50 percent of the film in a record 27 days. Scenes for the film have so far been shot at Chengelpet, Ooty, Coonoor, Pollachi and Thirumoorthy dam.

Says director Kannan, “I am delighted with the way the film is progressing. Both Bharath and Tamannaah attended our script reading session before the shoot and made things easy while shooting. The production team offered everything on time making any compromises unnecessary.”  

The remaining part of the film will be shot in Theni, Pollachi and Chennai in June and the film will be completed in 55 days within the budget.  

Another case in point is Kamal Haasan’s Unnaipol Oruvan, a remake of A Wednesday.
Kamal plans to complete this bilingual in Tamil and Telugu within 45 days at Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad and release the film in the first week of July!

The film will have Malayalam superstar Mohanlal in the Tamil version while Telugu top star Venkatesh will be seen doing his role in the Telugu version. The film will be marketed and sold to distributors only after completion. The actors’ salary and producer’s share will be from the profits accrued from the sale of rights and distribution rights.  It is a win-win situation for Kamal, as he will be able to complete the entire film on a shoe-string budget.

Similarly, Soundarya Rajinikanth and her Ocher Studios are trying to keep the cost down for their Venkat Prabhu film Goa. After completing the village scenes of the film in Theni, they are starting their second schedule in Goa, which they will complete in 45 days.  

Dhanajayan maintains that these tough times will initiate smart sizing. Says he, “Spiralling star fees and astronomical movie budgets are hurting the industry. This will come down. The financial crisis could also bring back good sense, respect for the craft of filmmaking and restore focus on creative issues in Kollywood.”

Wellywood is angling to make more money and keep it through new co-production deals being sought with the Hong Kong film industry.

A who's who delegation of film and gaming production executives has addressed the Hong Kong film industry after signing a memorandum of understanding that it is hoped will lead to Chinese money bankrolling New Zealand productions.

The conference, at Hong Kong's HK$2 billion (NZ$460.2 million) digital creative community Cyberport, lists some of Wellington's creative luminaries as speakers, including the head of Peter Jackson's Park Road Post, Aimee McCammon, production veteran Dave Gibson and Jos Ruffell, of leading game makers Sidhe Interactive.

Institute of Screen Innovation director Laurence Greig said the meeting would bring big benefits for the New Zealand industry.

Cyberport and the Hong Kong film producers Shaw Brothers were good examples of large, experienced businesses keen to learn from Wellington, he said.

Cyberport chief executive Nicholas Yang said New Zealand was a role model in the way it had achieved global status and earned international acclaim.

New Zealand already had a co-production treaty with Korea but one had not yet been established under the free trade agreement with China.

"We want to get a framework that will accelerate a co-production treaty so we get groups from China and Hong Kong looking to produce films in Wellington and New Zealand.

"Wellington features on the world stage as a centre of innovation but we haven't got the scale when it comes to capital to produce our own content."

Typically big-scale production houses came to New Zealand to work with the expertise but took all the profit potential away when they left.

More capital access would allow New Zealand companies to own more of what they produced to increase future homegrown earnings off that.

"We are trying to migrate the New Zealand industry from being famous for producing other people's films and games to producing our own and owning the content," Mr Greig said.

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast was a delegate and signed the deal.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Woody Allan's Hollywood Ending. What makes the picture so funny is that Allan who plays a "once famous," down and out director who is hired to do his "come-back film." Of course in the cast of the present HOLLYWOOD, it has a big problem on it's hands. What is it? Cash for new projects.  Here is a great over view I found at Forbes.

The movie business isn't recession-proof, after all.

Judging by the box office--a record-setting $70 million opening for Quantum of Solace, fans camping out for Twilight and a blockbuster holiday season ahead--things seem great in Hollywood. But look away from the glow of the screen, and Tinseltown gets a lot darker.

All of the 10 highest-grossing studios, which control 91% of U.S. market share have scaled back or combined their operations in recent months. This year's top-grossing studio, Warner Brothers Entertainment, shuttered two of its independent arms, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, and absorbed a third, New Line Cinema, in an effort to cut costs. Their total film output will drop to 20 films this year, down 25% from last year's slate. Paramount and 20th Century Fox made similar cuts.

It isn't the terrible economy--yet. People are still going to movies. The big problem is Wall Street. Without money from private equity and big investment banks, which injected an estimated $10 to $18 billion into Hollywood in the last four years, studios have had to change the way they do business--fast. "I would be very dubious for Hollywood as we know it surviving," says David Thomson, film critic and author of Have You Seen ...?

The American film industry "can't sustain much higher growth rates or attract capital at the same low rates the way they could a year or two ago," says Harold Vogel, president of Vogel Capital Management and author of Entertainment Industry Economics. "All the risk has been repriced."

As financing costs escalate, so will production costs. That means fewer films. Though the reduction ripple won't hit the box office until 2010, the number of productions will be down 5% to 10% over the next few years, predicts Vogel. The total number of feature films in wide release climbed from 478 in 2000 to 631 last year, a 32% increase. The number of movie tickets sold increased by only 1% in that same period.

The independent film industry may shrink even more. According to remarks made by Mark Gill, CEO of The Film Department, at the L.A. Film Festival last June, of the 5,000 films submitted to Sundance last year only "maybe five" would make money. There were 477 independent films made in 2007, according to the Independent Film & Television Alliance, each costing an average of $16.5 million to make.

"There's been an open spigot of money flowing into Hollywood, and the pictures are killing each other," says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. "We can't handle the number of movies we're getting right now."
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International financing has increased importance. Recently, Abu Dhabi Media announced it will spend $1 billion over the next five years on U.S.-produced feature films. Steven Spielberg's new venture is being funded with $1.5 billion in equity and debt from India's Reliance ADA group.

The theater industry is also feeling the pinch as it transitions from film to digital projection. "The traditional funding sources are currently shut down," says Bud Mayo, CEO of Access IT, a third-party integration company that has converted 70% of the digital screens in the U.S. Last fall, Access IT announced plans to furnish 10,000 additional screens in by the first quarter 2011. They've installed eight so far this year.

Loans from investment banks provided companies like Access IT with the credit to install the new equipment, while studios essentially pay off that debt through a fee--usually around $1,000--for every digital copy they ship to the movie theaters. "As long as the movie theaters show movies, we're going to get paid," says Mayo. "We're very bullish on the industry."

Though the nationwide overhaul would cost near $3 billion, it would save distributors and theater owners nearly a billion dollars a year by replacing the cumbersome, costly film reels with digital versions. Currently 5,200 screens, or 13% of all the screens in the U.S., are digital.

Theaters without digital technology will be at a loss in the coming years as consumer demand for, and output of, 3-D movies increases. Starting in 2010, about 20% of all wide-release films will be in 3-D, a format that can only be shown on digital projectors with an additional converter.

Fithian remains an optimist. "History clearly shows that the cinema business tends to do better during recessionary times," says Fithian. "We have to have good movies to get people to come to the cinema." Maybe just not so many.

Kevin Smith is an amazing filmmaker who started out totally independent making the film Clerks on his credit cards totally 27,000 Dollars. He later sold the film to Miramax for 1.5 Million Dollars.


Here are some recent questions and answers with Kevin Smith at University Of Kansas.

Since writing, directing and producing the 1994 cult classic Clerks, Kevin Smith has become one of the biggest names in comedic filmmaking. Smith’s newest film, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, hit theaters last Friday. Jayplay recently had the opportunity to chat with Smith as part of his conference call with other student journalists around the country. Q. You’ve had a lot of difficulties with the marketing for Zach and Miri Make a Porno. What’s the big deal with the word “porno?”

A. I knew when we titled the movie Zach and Miri Make a Porno that it was going to turn some people off. I assumed that the people who would be turned off by that title were never going to see the movie in the first place, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal. But suddenly cities have been popping up that won’t allow us to put a billboard up. Like Philadelphia wouldn’t allow us to put up any billboard that had the word “porno” on it. I was flabbergasted, because I felt like we had used the cutest word possible to describe that industry. I understand people who wouldn’t be into pornography, but you can’t object to the term. How else are we supposed to describe it?

Q. Do you think this movie will change views of pornography?

A. I think most people will take this movie for what it is. I don’t think they’ll look at it like, “Hey, man, suddenly this is changing everything I’ve ever felt about the porn industry.” I’m not looking to convert people. I’m just looking to entertain them with this one story. There are a bunch of people out there that find it offensive, and I get that. And there are a bunch of people—mostly dudes—who see it as an essential part of their day. I don’t think the movie will affect that.

Q. How did growing up in New Jersey affect your filmmaking?

A. I think the area in New Jersey where I grew up affected the dialogue I write, where it’s kind of candid dialogue with a lot of vulgarity, because that’s just my circle of friends. I imagine if I grew up anywhere else it wouldn’t be that much different, although having the friends I have has certainly influenced me as a filmmaker as far as the stories I like to tell.

But you grow up in New Jersey and you’re kind of always growing up in the shadow of New York, and you’re the butt of a lot of jokes. There’s still that necessity to prove yourself to people, so I think we tend to try harder. Growing up in Jersey is like growing up fat. You just tend to try harder.

Q. You’ve always been known as a talented writer, but how do you feel your directing skills and the look of your movies have improved over the years?

A. Only recently has that stuff started to improve because I’ve started putting some thought into it. I’m not a born filmmaker, where it’s in my genes. I don’t live, breath and eat film. But I do like to write. When I made Clerks, it was more about writing the script and directing actors. I never really thought of the look of the film. And then when the reviews for the movie came in, people would write wonderful things about it, but invariably every review would say, “Well, it looks like shit, but man is it fun.” So I kind of took that, idiotically, as a pass to never try to improve my visual game, because I’m like, “As long as people are laughing, nobody gives a shit what it looks like.” It was only on Clerks 2 that I really started trying. I think that movie is the first one that I look at and go, “Oh, that is actually a visually interesting film.”

Q. What are you doing now that Zach and Miri is finished?

A. Hopefully in the spring I’m going to do a flick called Red State. It’s a little political horror movie. I’m looking forward to it because I don’t really feel like a filmmaker most days. I just feel like a guy who directs the stuff that he happens to write. With Red State, I get to switch genres altogether. There are no laughs in the movie whatsoever. I feel like if I can pull this one off, I might feel more like a filmmaker. If not, I’ll just be like, “Okay, I get it. I’m a dick-and-fart joke guy, and I should just do that for the rest of my life.”

Q. What advice would you give young filmmakers trying to break into the business?

A. I’d just say everybody should tell the exact story they want to tell, never mind the influence of people telling you how to change it or make it more marketable. At the end of the day, you’ve got to live with that movie for the rest of your life. That’s your flick. If you start subverting what you set out to do, then it stops being yours. Stick with your voice, because nobody else has your voice, so nobody else can do what it is that you want to do.