<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Guest Article:</B></FONT> In-film product placement: What does it mean to screenwriters?

A lot has been said and written about in-film-product-placements and different people have suggested different methods to seamlessly integrate ads within the film’s main plot. The writer, who has recently passed out from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and now works as a freelance screenwriter, pens his views on the same

Rohit G Banawlikar

Freelance Screenwriter

November 21

A lot has been said and written about in-film product placements (IFPPs) and different people have suggested different methods to seamlessly integrate ads within the film’s main plot. However, not many screenwriters have commented on this latest development. One suspects life will probably never be the same again for them, what with the IFPP phenomenon looking like it’s here to stay.

Broadly speaking, the screenwriter can face three different scenarios. Either he’s aware about the kind of product placements that his screenplay has to cater to, even before he puts pen to paper, or he’s already started working on the screenplay and is told about the same or, worse still, he has probably completed what he thinks is the final draft, only to discover a product placement staring him in the face.

In the first case, life is a lot less complicated, as the writer has enough time and space and can, therefore, design his scenes to accordingly accommodate the placements. The second case is more complex, yet manageable. The third case, however, is a writer’s nightmare, for he has to go through his entire work all over again and hope he will discover suitable homes to house these products. If he cannot find these, then in all probability he shall have to rewrite some scenes. And, as most screenwriters will tell you, rewriting one scene very often means rewriting many other preceding and succeeding scenes as well.

But then, so what if rewrites are required? Authorities on screenwriting have said in no uncertain terms that writing is indeed rewriting. Well, rewriting to resolve the plot is very different from rewriting to accommodate other motives that are, essentially speaking, outside the ambit of natural story-telling. While the former is an organic exercise, the latter is entirely contrived, no matter how seamless it may eventually end up appearing.

Besides, it’s a known fact that screenwriters rarely get enough time to explore all possibilities before submitting their work. Actors’ dates and shooting locations, among other factors, have always taken clear priority over time allotted for completing scripts. And now with the IFPP factor coming in, life will be lived in an even faster lane, and a further deterioration in the quality of screenplays should not come as a surprise.

An ideal situation would be to first have a script in place, and then locate possibilities of product placements without disturbing the texture of carefully crafted scenes that have witnessed the labour of the screenwriter.

But then, what happens if the completed script does not allow any such placements? Will our marketers let go? Nah, the business is only too brutal to allow that to happen.

(The writer is a freelance screenwriter and a recent pass-out from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. You can write to him at rohitgbanawlikar@rediffmail.com)

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