Your Aks shouldn’t become ‘Sucks’

Bipbipbip, beeeeeep! the sms on my phone comes to life and there's new message. Another joke from a friend that, i'm sure, is chain-smsing around india already. "What's the sequel to aks?" it asks. "Sucks," it goes on to answer. I can almost see the chain of giggles accompanying this rather concise review of that super-hyped movie. Bollywood is cruel have a hit, and everyone loves you. Don't, and people sidle away from you at parties. But being loved or avoided are part of the game - and there are hundreds, nay thousands of film-makers - who are willing to take that risk. all for a chance to make their own movie. If anything, now's the best time to try make that 'different kind of film. One genre- busting, blockbusting hit like lagan has softened up the system, and you have a short window of time to be able to sneak in non-formula formulations. Yes, the system is difficult — and it's enormously hard to break into this entrenched industry. Yet, people still manage to make their film. Nagesh kuku Noor took a few us dollars and his complete ignorance of all these supposed difficulties, and went ahead and made his Hyderabad blues anyway. Not all routes involve innocence and naivete. Here's still a different suggestion, take a deep breath and try the internet. Yes, it may actually turn out to be a glimmer of hope. Projects greenlight (www.projectgreeniight.com) is a year-long script contest backed by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Miramax. After 7000+ entries and a year, they selected stolen summer, submitted over the net by a rookie writer, and awarded it a $1 million production budget and a guaranteed release by Miramax. Another top 10 finalist got an agent and a production deal. This isn't the only contest: there's $25,000 for the best script at www.screenplay.com, in fact there's an entire list of hundreds of screenwriting contests with varying prizes from production money down to simply the adoration of your peers at www.moviebytes.com. writers script network keeps copyrighted scripts behind passwords and allows production houses like new line cinema, tide rock and hearst entertainment to see if they'd like to option them. If you think 'Virtual script markets' are a bit iffy, try an old-fashioned solution: an agent with an online presence - Hollywood lit sales (yes, at www.hollywoodlitsales. com) will try to sell your script. What is it you need to do? if you're a writer, hunker down, write your story and make sure you don't fill it with cliches - you can look in at movie clichés to see what to avoid. If you're a director and want a good story to direct, go over to directors' net and you'll find a lot more than just spec scripts. so go ahead and just do it, who knows you'd want to wear an Armani or Jean Paul Gaultier at the Oscars.