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By Vivek Wadhwa The Plot Thickens, Slowly My new career as a Bollywood producer is providing quite an education, especially about the gulf between East and West A computer programmer turned CEO dining with famous movie stars and beauty queens, and signing up to produce a movie? This is something I wouldn't even have dreamed of. Yet I had just become executive producer of a feature film, My Bollywood Bride. Going from technology to the entertainment business, I was clearly a fish out of water. I had no idea whether my past experience and skills would be useful or relevant, or what I was getting into. I did expect that I would learn a lot and have fun along the way. My first major lesson in this new world was about the importance of culture and values. I never realized how hard it would be to produce a film that would appeal to audiences both in the East and the West. In the business of technology and software development, cultural differences play a minor role. That's why IBM (IBM ) and Microsoft (MSFT ) have no trouble whatsoever developing products partly in the U.S. and partly in India. Software isn't cultural. Either it's useful or it isn't. Movies, though, are a different thing. Movies aren't useful. They are entertaining. And entertainment is entirely subjective. SCRIPT NIXED. Let me recap the cast of characters in my adventure. Ex-investment banker Brad Listermann recruited me to help him produce a Hollywood film in India with his wife, Kashmira Shah, an Indian actress. Brad's idea for a movie had gained the attention of Duncan Clark, the ex-President of Columbia Tri-Star Film Distributors International. Duncan had managed the marketing and distribution of over 1,000 films, including some of the industry's biggest hits. Duncan was always fascinated by the Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, which actually produces more movies than Hollywood, and saw a unique opportunity to learn more about this industry (see BW Online, 1/21/04, "Bollywood, Here I Come"). If you recall, what sold me on the project was the script Brad and Kashmira had created. The story was loosely based on their lives. American bachelor meets Bollywood star and follows her back to her exotic world. When I read the script, I absolutely loved it. I thought it was warm, compassionate, and funny. The best part was that it would show India through the eyes of a Westerner and bring both worlds together. I was really surprised when Duncan tore into this script and said that we needed to "upgrade the quality of the screenplay." He liked the script and thought it might work well for the Indian market, but for an international market, he felt it needed extensive revision. For this to be a story in the mould of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as he wanted, it would need professional input from Hollywood. I didn't quite understand, but who was I to question someone like Duncan? A BIT TOO HOT. Duncan introduced Brad to his close friend Richard Martini. Rich had directed some Hollywood movies and had just completed the script for a HBO miniseries currently in development. He had traveled to India once in search of a lost friend, and knew what it was like to land in an exotic foreign land. Rich was very excited about this project and couldn't stop talking about his personal experiences in India. After many weeks, and some long work sessions between Duncan and Rich, they sent Brad, Kashmira, and me the revised script. All three of us had the same reaction. It was a marked improvement for the American market -- but a total disaster for the Indian one! Rich's well-intentioned alterations crystallized the differences between East and West, Bollywood and Hollywood. To start with, Bollywood movies tend to emphasize family values and tradition. Sex is simply a taboo. Not that Indian movies aren't sexy and tantalizing. Many Bollywood movies rival the boldest Hollywood ones. In an industry in which there is never any nudity and in which even kissing scenes were censored until recently, Bollywood directors perfected the art of being suggestive. They do this through dances that can be incredibly erotic and sensual, and through sexy outfits and body movements that leave little to the imagination. The Hollywood version of our script had the lovers in an explicit bedroom scene at the climax of the movie. This would simply be unacceptable to Bollywood audiences. ONE FAN'S HERO... This version of our story was warm and funny by Hollywood standards, but cold and heartless by Bollywood standards. Now, I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but there is a huge difference in how emotions and feelings are expressed in these two worlds. In Hollywood movies, the characters are usually real and imperfect human beings. Like most people, they hesitate to show emotion in public. In Bollywood you have the other extreme. The heroes usually have extraordinary strength and ability and few faults. The heroines are usually the manifestation of morality and family values. The plot is always deeply emotional and melodramatic. The characters are so open about their feelings that they break into song and dance when they are happy, when they are sad, when they break up, and when they make up. In fact, almost anytime there is a mood change, somebody breaks into song or starts dancing. We needed a plot that had the Bollywood melodrama, but maintained some kind of realism. A good example of this is the Hollywood blockbuster -- Titanic, which had the Bollywood style of melodrama, but also realistic and believable characters. I also realized that the standard plot vehicles that underpin so many movies in India translate poorly to Hollywood. In our story, the Bollywood actress is in love with our American hero, but agrees to marry someone else because her mother wants her to. A story like this would be easily understood by an audience in India, where most marriages are still arranged. But we needed to explain this to a Western audience. No matter what Duncan or Rich did with the script, they couldn't quite capture these concepts. I couldn't blame them, the cultural gap is huge.
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