We love making movies...

For Hindi film buffs, Yash Chopra needs no introduction at all. He?s the man whose been weaving his celluloid magic for over four decades now, enthralling cine-goers in India and abroad with movies such as Deewar, Dhool Ka Phool, Ittefaq, Kabhie Kabhie, Chandni and Dil To Pagal Hai. Regarded as the ?King of Romance?, Chopra is one of the few old-school filmmakers to have successfully made the transition to a new-age entertainment entrepreneur, and his company Yash Raj Films, of which he?s the chairman, has been taking the necessary steps in this direction.

2004 has been an eventful year for Yash Raj, and in this interview with Viveat Susan Pinto of agencyfaqs!, Chopra highlights his plans for the future.

Edited Excerpts

I have always been in direction, so the question of making a comeback does not arise. Aditya, my son, and me had mutually decided to do films in turns. I made Dil To Pagal Hai in 1997, he followed it up with Mohabbatein in 2001. After that, I had no subject in my hand that was exciting enough. So, Aditya launched Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai and Mujse Dosti Karoge. Parallely, Saathiya happened in 2002, where we were associated with the project as producers and distributors. Then one day, Aditya came to me with an idea to do a film that was earthy and in tune with our roots. He narrated two scenes that he had written and it excited me so much that I decided to do the film, Veer-Zaara. That was two years ago. Well, it did take me that long to do the movie, but I don’t regret it when I see the response it is getting at the moment. It is simply mind-blowing.

When the script for the movie was completed, I felt that using Indian melodies would be a good idea as opposed to Western music. The subject was such – a love story with the protagonists from India and Pakistan going back twenty years in time. A couple of composers had, in fact, produced some music for the film, but I wasn’t satisfied. Though the work was good, I felt it wouldn’t do justice to the theme. That’s when Sanjay Kohli, who is the CEO of Yash Raj Films, and who also happens to be the son of Madan Mohan, mentioned that he had a number of unused tunes of his late father. I heard them and selected about 30 from the lot and had them recorded with dummy voices and words. Once that was in place I asked Javed (Akhtar) to write the lyrics and Lata (Mangeshkar) to sing the songs.

Oh yes! He took it very well. He was, in fact, excited about the project all along. The old man bit is integral to the film, and Shahrukh realised that. We first shot the portions where he was young, then moved to the jail sequence and finally to the courtroom drama.

It is a natural progression for us. To draw an analogy, I was an assistant director when I started out in the film industry. Subsequently, I became a director. Later, when I felt that I needed to control the process of production, I became a producer. In other words, moving up as an individual, or as a company is critical. When Aditya did Dilwale Dulaniya Le Jayenge in 1995, we raked in big monies for the first time. With money, came the desire to fulfill long cherished dreams. We felt that people were not honest with us in the distribution business, so we got into that space.

Music was another area that we felt could be handled in-house. Music companies today are hardly able to generate enough revenue owing to the onslaught of FM music, Internet downloads, ring tones, piracy etc. When companies are not able to give us a good margin, we see no point in selling the copyright of our music to them. So, the next best thing was to launch our own label, and that’s what we did. In home entertainment too, we have followed a similar principle of choosing to control the operation internally rather than giving the rights to a third party.

It will be up and running shortly. The studio is coming up in Andheri, and we are making sure that it is a self-sufficient unit with production and post-production facilities. One reason for setting up this studio is because we felt we needed to centralise our operations. Our team is growing and we needed a place, where we could operate as a single entity. A corporate office housing our various departments – music, home entertainment, design, marketing, production – is coming up next to the film studio. This way, we can all shift to the new premises, barring the distribution wing, which will continue to operate from our Lamington Road office (in Mumbai). By centralising our operations, we will be more efficient, disciplined and organised.

I would like the company to be self-sufficient. The moment you depend on others, your success or failure is contingent upon their ups and downs. I would rather not do that. We love making movies and we will stick to it. At the same time, however, we need to consolidate our operations in the areas of production, home entertainment and music. The film studio too is equally important for us.

The investment should cross Rs 75 crore. And, if you ask me about how many movies we intend doing, we will not go beyond 3-4 films a year. We just can’t. And the studio that is coming up should help us achieve our objectives. That way, work will progress smoothly without any hindrance.

The approach to every film is different. We treat each movie on its own merit. Hum Tum and Dhoom had a different target audience as opposed to Veer-Zaara, which is broadbased in terms of appeal and subject. While the creative decisions are taken by Aditya, we do have a very young team in marketing.

Product placements are good but it has to be done subtly. The moment it becomes too loud, it could harm the product as well as the film. In Mohabbatein, for instance, there was the scene of a marketplace. At a marketplace, you need shops and business establishments peddling their ware. We thus saw a fit in terms of placing a couple of products because the overall ambience lent itself well to the arrangement. But, if you place products just for the sake of it, without finding an appropriate fit, it is cheap. In Veer-Zaara, for instance, there is not a single product placement because the subject does not lend itself to such an activity. Hum Tum and Dhoom, on the other hand, did give us enough room to experiment and place a couple of brands.

It is a healthy trend in my opinion. Small-budget movies give you a greater scope to experiment with bolder subjects and themes, and filmmakers can also take the necessary risks. Remember, every film cannot be a big-budget movie. So this trend is good because it allows new talent to come on board and find their place under the sun.

Well, viewer choice is growing. But this trend, in particular, has been fuelled by the multiplex phenomenon. Multiplexes allow niche movies to be premiered because the audience is, more or less, prepared for it. They see no harm in viewing a film that is bold, or has a radically different theme. Buoyed by its success, we too are looking to venture into this area.

Well, it didn’t happen this year, but we are hopeful of flagging off a production in 2005. I am not ruling out the possibility of doing an English film. However, there is nothing for me to elaborate on at this point.

I would love to venture into television production. In fact, we had produced a television series and a talent hunt titled Meri Awaz Suno, which ran on Doordarshan and STAR Plus a few years ago. Television, however, is something that requires dedicated effort.

To really make a success of television, you need people who are trained in the medium and who understand it. We did have a couple of ideas for TV at a certain point in time, but it didn’t quite take off. Once we streamline our operations, we do have plans to start a TV cell to look into productions for the small screen.

The Ad Cell has been doing some work for Dabur. We have done commercials with Rani (Mukherjee) and Amitabh Bachchan, and the division continues to move ahead. The purpose of launching YRF Ad Cell had to do with our desire to have every form of production – be it TV, film or commercials, under one roof. The Ad Cell was launched last year, and we are hopeful of launching the TV cell soon.

I am not against it, but at the same time, I am not mentally ready for it as yet. I have been thinking about it but I don’t think anything will happen just yet.