Thursday, February 24, 2005

Outsourcing?

Met a guy in one of our family get-togethers who happened to be greater movie freak than I am. So, he started giving me all the little tit-bits that he knew - his advantage being he has a lot of insider info (one of those guys who's got singers and actors for second cousin's distant family friend). We were talking of lyricists (rather he was talking and I was listening) when he told me what a brilliant guy lyricist Sameer is!

Seems Sameer doesn't write even one of his songs. Yeah, there was a time when he used to write them. But now he's got these whole army of budding poets who want to get into movies. So, he asks one of them to write the song and give it to him. He then gives it to the director calling it his "creation". Now the good thing here is
  • The director is happy coz he gets a work of art from a guy who still has the fire in him to succeed rather than from someone who's successful and hence complacent. Hence the song is definitely going to be better.
  • Lyricist Sameer is happy because he gets a lot of money for doing nothing! (ok for doing as much as Monsterjobs.com)
  • The budding poets are happy because they get first hand experience in writing for films, get paid for their songs (which is definitely better than nothing) and if Sameer dada wills, can even become a lyricist themselves (oh you wish!!)
It was my moment of epiphany - I have never believed more in the power in Outsourcing! I guess, the only victims here are fellow lyricists who are fighting for their share of the cake and are losing it because - they can't give songs with the same passion, fire in the belly (and under it!) and with such speed because, after all, they have to write THEMSELVES!

PS: The gossip corners of kodambakkam (the mecca of tamil cinema) usually whisper as I walk past them in the dark that Comedy-superstar Vivek is doing something very similar - forming a group of college guys who come up with jokes for him (and get paid for it of course!) which he then uses and delivers in his own style.

4 Comments:

Blogger Sagnik Nandy said...

reminds me of a sitcome i had once seen where the direcor could not shoot coz his dvd player was not working - hence he was left without "inspiration"

1:25 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hi,
Nice blog ... Thiz my first visit , and definitely not the last :)

10:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What did u think, Jay Leno and Dave Letterman, john Stuart et al write their own jokes for their sitcoms? nah.. they have a research team who come up with these jokes. ofcourse they thrive in their delivery of these jokes and ofcourse the research team is acknowledged in the credits. So there u go, but its not as bad as stealing someone elses hardwork.

11:34 AM  
Blogger Rathish said...

@Jayan - thank you and do come again :)

@Sriram - subtle difference - they are being credited for their work. And noone ever claims these guys write their own jokes - though when the titles read lyrics by sameer - it's not the same ball park is it :)

12:52 PM  

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