<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Guest Article:</B></FONT> Indu Balachandran: To cut a short story long

Indu Balachandran

JWT Chennai

June 13

Years ago, while shooting an ad film with Rajiv Menon, he took me across to the next floor, where a big Tamil blockbuster was being shot. He said the director wanted to chat with me.

I was intrigued and flattered – this was Singeetham Srinivas Rao, the brilliant director who once gave us ‘Pushpak’ (the silent movie starring Kamal Hassan). And this completely disarming and unassuming man told me over lunch, “I marvel at you advertising people. How do you manage to say a story with songs, dialogues, action in 30 seconds? We get almost three hours!”

Later, while editing our film for Dyanora TV, I remember ringing up my servicing person and begging him for 10 or at least five more seconds to make our film ‘breathe’ a bit. But he replied, “The client will kill us.”

Every creative person and filmmaker sitting in a dark night in a studio has been in the cruel 30 second stop-watch situation.

First we hear: Think of a great 30-second commercial. But we are told on the way back from the client briefing, it may run in a 20-second cut-down. Anyways, just get the IDEA first, we’ll worry about the duration later.

So we get the idea first. Not just one, but three. And off we go to the client presentation.

The client likes Route 1. Route 2 is excellent. But Route 3 is really wow! What a great twist in the end. Everyone loves this one and we return flushed from the meeting, doing high fives.

Somewhere during the pre-pre-prod, the filmmaker we choose tells us quite clearly, we need 40 seconds to make this storyline really work. Otherwise, we should do the other idea you mentioned, which fits 30 seconds. But the client has already approved Route 3, we cry. And while the servicing person looks a bit nervous, we say to the director, you say you need 40 seconds, the client will surely listen to you.

It’s the pre-prod meeting. The client loves the filmmaker’s sensitive and articulate narration of the storyboard and everybody’s thrilled. “But we’ll need 40 seconds for this treatment. Otherwise, I’d rather do the other idea I heard about.”

“Oh, just shoot the film first, ‘na’, we’ll worry about the duration later,” says the client as we wrap up and everybody rushes off doing high fives.

Now it’s that dark, all night long struggle in the editing studio as a sleepless copywriter sits with the filmmaker. Let’s do a 30 and a 40 and the client will see for himself why the 40 really works, they tell each other.

The presentation next morning is a breeze! They even clap at the end of it. They love Version 2. Approved! But we point out, We just showed you a 40-second version.

“WHAT!” yells the client, turning to the hapless servicing person. “No, no. What do you think? We have MNC kind of budgets?? Just cut some shots here and there. I’m sure you can – you are the experts. And by the way, just try and dwell on the brand window a little more when you edit. And it will all be fine. Great film, guys! We should be on air next Monday.”

Well. To grant it to servicing, they did say, “We’ll worry about it later.” And that’s exactly what happens for the next frenzied week. We fly up and down. We lose sleep. We fight. We beg. We yell, I told you so. We worry. Because that very wonderful moment in our commercial – when our actor’s expression slowly changes in the end – is gone forever. It’s now a neat 30 seconder, but a film with no soul.

All because we didn’t fight this one out and settle the issue in the pre-prod itself. Because we never involved the media guys in the ideation stage itself. Because the media plan seems to have been writ in cement, and now is not the time the client or the media head is in any mood to hear our logical argument: Cut out a few 20 second follow ups and let’s have an impactful 40 seconder at the launch, as the idea demands it.

Because we say the words that trip us up time and again: “We’ll worry about it later.”

(The writer is a creative consultant with JWT, Chennai. You can write to her at indubee8@yahoo.co.in).

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