Making Writers Content

“Writers,unlike actors,don’t appear on Page 3. You need to introduce them into the system,and that’s what we try to do through these sessions,” says Chaitanya Hegde,co-founder of Tulsea Pictures,who started the company along with Datta Dave. Within a couple of years since it started out,the company’s clientele features the brightest of Hindi film screenwriters: from Akshat Verma of Delhi Belly,Anjum Rajabali of Rajneeti fame to Vikramaditya Motwane who co-wrote Dev D,and directed Udaan and Lootera.

Hindi cinema hasn’t been the best place for writers,especially in the last three decades,where the success of a film is solely linked to its star-power. With recent trends indicating that moderately budgeted,content-based films have prospects of great commercial returns,there is renewed interest in seeking out genuine writing talent. Delhi Belly has been a major game-changer making Rs 100 crore on a budget of Rs 25 crore,which was followed by Vicky Donor and Kahaani doing similar kind of business.

But studios are still not getting the right kind of scripts. “Producers complain that there are no good scripts,and good writers ask,‘where are the producers?’. This is where we come in,” says 41-year-old Hegde,sitting in a cafe in Bandra which works as their makeshift office. Their process of procuring clients is painstaking,where they scan through the work of 15,000-odd writers who have registered at the Film Writers’ Association to gauge a person’s screenwriting skills. They even look up blog posts.

“The real excitement of our job is identifying new talent that studios,producers and directors won’t find otherwise,” says Dave,who learnt his chops as the business manager for Shekhar Kapur. Be it a psychological thriller or a relationship-based story,Hegde and Dave claim to have a writer for all genres. Presently representing 23 writers,they are not confined to just Bollywood,but work with regional cinema as well.

Other than spotting good scripts,for the writers that are signed on,they also provide solid legal support over contracts with big studios,negotiate the best deals for them,and the company manages directors too. “The good part about Tulsea is that they come from the writers’ side. They help a great deal in protecting your interests during negotiations that historically have been unfairly weighed towards the producers,” says Verma,one of the company’s first clients.

“Given a chance,all writers would want to focus only on writing. Sometimes all these commercial aspects intimidate them. They are creative people,often with big egos,and have strong opinions,like kids,” says Hegde,who was executive producer for filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra before.

Currently,the duo gets a cut from the deals made between writers and producers. They see this as a business model that can only get bigger and plan to expand internationally and even venture into advertisement,web and television content. “Digitisation has made the business a more democratic process. People have so many options to consume content. If content is really the king,then we are here to stay,” says 33-year-old Dave.

sankhayan.ghosh@expressindia.com