Last Saturday we had the first and only cast and crew screening for the film. It went well, but that was to be expected, I guess. Surely the personnel of every film give it the benefit of every doubt, and sometimes the blind spots may even prevent the doubts from manifesting.

Rajat, Vrajesh and Mr Jariwala were out of town but most others from the cast were there. Some even came from Pune just to see the film. They all seemed very happy at the end, seemed to love the film, but I’ll take it all with a pinch of salt. Kartika, Mandeep, Debu and Mr Karnik were visibly happy with the film. Kartika seemed quiet after the film, though happy with everything. Sushant’s reaction was the only one that stumped me. He seemed bewildered and confused overall about the film, disoriented being the most accurate description perhaps. He seemed focused on his performance and appeared unsure of how he’d done. About the film, all he could offer were criticisms about a couple of scenes being somewhat out of focus. I guess it is not easy to see yourself overwhelmingly carrying the film, but I’d have thought an actor of his experience would find it easier to evaluate the final result overall. I suspect Kartika was a bit dazed by the same thing too, but I’m quite sure they’ll both find the second viewing of the film much more enjoyable.

That will now only happen on 18th or 19th June when the film premiere is held. It is definitely releasing on 20th June; that much has been confirmed. Hulla stays the title, as Bajaate Raho was not available. As it transpires, they also decided to go with Indian Ocean’s music for the promos, and are not planning to record any fresh tracks. According to Shamim, my email was taken seriously, and that is a pleasant surprise to me.

The week before that had been pretty stressful and disillusioning. It wasn’t just the complete lack of communication from the producers’ side on what action was being taken, but also the arbitrariness with which things had been happening. Someone from Adlabs had apparently come and rejected all the promos I had worked out with Sonali, the editor at Pixion. Then, the cast crew screening venue had not been booked by Alliance despite several reminders to Shamim (which would have led to the cancellation of the screening altogether if they hadn’t found a vacancy somewhere else in the same time slot). Then Shamim had called and told me that the film was over-budget and Cartwheel was responsible since we were EPs. That enraged me immensely, because

i) Shamim had made many deals unilaterally as line producer without ever involving Cartwheel, and some of those were earlier estimated differently and

ii) All the delays that had happened after the shoot on this project had happened because of Alliance. Given that Cartwheel had to repeatedly adjust its schedules to their whims, it was a highly tasteless comment on his part. It was as if they wanted complete power with zero accountability.

When I took off on him and reminded him that I would never ever have worked with him as line producer if we had been given the proper powers of an EP, he backtracked saying he meant the extra amount would be subtracted before our share was paid, which of course was not what he had said at all initially.

Anyway, the whole thing left a bad taste in the mouth. It surprises me that people choose to complicate things by misrepresenting themselves so often. It’s almost as if there are other agendas at play rather than the smooth, transparent functioning of a project.

I had a telephone chat with Rajat about this, and his reaction was that I was being immature and childish by getting worked up about these things. Given that his interaction with Alliance had been very different from mine, and his company’s dealings much more cordial with them, I was a bit disappointed with his lack of empathy. He kept telling me that I should feel fortunate that my film happened the way I wanted it without too much interference from the producer, rather than whining all the time. All the other stuff you speak about is par for the course, he said. Even I had no say in the promos of Mithya, he said, and what you are going through happens to most people in this industry. None of this really washed with me. His experiences and his temperament may have set parameters of “acceptable” behaviour for him, but they weren’t relevant to me, I realized. (For one, I don’t believe I should be grateful to anybody for allowing me to make the film my way; the producer in the end got a much better product, which he will financially benefit from more than anyone else.) I don’t think it is very creditable to accept all this nonsense with a smile, or to look away and shrugging it off saying it happens to everyone. To my mind, that just encourages and perpetuates this kind of behaviour. You can justify inaction with all kinds of “mature” sounding reasons, but this brand of maturity definitely does not fit me.

It is also clear to me that the working culture in a project is really set by the head/s of the project. The most mediocre people in some set-ups can be the most efficient in others if they work in a focused system with a clearly defined work ethic. The real problem is political power-hungry people, and they should be weeded out as soon as possible. This project had its fair share of those samples, but hopefully this experience will stand me in good stead for the future.

Eventually, Shamim organized a meeting with Adlabs, himself, Pixion and myself for the promos, and I just wish it had been done earlier. The brief Shamim had given me previously for the promos was way off, and this meeting helped clear a lot of things. We could have saved so much time and energy if this most obvious commonsense step of having a meeting with everybody at the beginning of the exercise was acted upon earlier.

Conrad Martin of Adlabs explained the limitations of the exercise to me, and things have been much more cordial and productive since then. Clear communication can make so much difference. There is no greater need in any project.

Hopefully, it will stay this way till the end, which is not far away. I hope I can finish this last leg of the race without any more heartburn.