Al Pacino tells Collin Farrel in The Recruit (an espionage thriller), “Nothing is what it seems”. Promotion managers of Bollywood films have gone a step ahead. They believe, “Nothing is dirty in publicity”.
Akshay Kumar asked his wife Twinkle to unbutton his jeans at a public function, just days before the release of his film Tasveer. Soon media headlines cried ‘FIR against Akki’. Shah Rukh Khan broke his silence on the 26/11-attack on his home city unusually late through a special column launched in a leading daily just before the release of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Aamir Khan was locked in a courtroom drama trying to retain the custody of a handicapped sibling few days before the release of Taare Zameen Par. Even his most unexpected appearance in the ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ was days before the release of Fanaa. Hrithik Roshan was caught kissing Barbara Mori while their film Kites was getting ready for release. Ram Gopal Verma chose to copy, of all songs, the National Anthem to hype his forthcoming film Rann.
Where does it end? Even as the censor office refused permission to Ramu’s controversial song, the filmmaker had the last laugh. “Of course, I have done it for publicity,” he said. “Any material that goes out of a filmmaker’s office — by way of interviews, audio-visuals, music pieces or anything else — is to create publicity for his film.”
The debate is no longer what is right or wrong, good or bad, innovative or boring. Whether the stunt is generating hype and
resulting in higher sales is what counts. Thus, link-ups, break-ups, patch-ups, punch-ups are the key quotients for a film’s publicity. News got to unravel in front of people’s eyes.
Is that why Shahid Kapoor, playing lead in Kaminey, due for release this month, is reportedly changing his relationships every second day? And what if the name of the film had been Khooni! A mutual Facebook friend of Shahid and Priyanka Chopra revealed that the two have been exchanging flirty messages on the site in full view of their accepted buddies. Priyanka, who normally keeps relationships under wraps, recently split with Harman Baweja, just before the release of his second movie, Victory, in January 2009.
It suits all. The actors get publicity. The producer can hope for the sale of his film to shoot-up and the director gets to see his name in the media more often. And if it is non-stop fodder for TV channels, the distributor and the exhibitor feel, “Picture garam ho rahi hai ji” (The film is becoming hot).
But many films take another route to publicity. Ushers in major multiplexes in India were sporting the trademark hairstyle of Ghajini even while fans rushed in to watch a Shah Rukh Khan film. Aamir Khan not only turned a barber but encouraged youngsters to build their body around Ghajini’s release. Rani and Abhishek Bachchan made bakra of people on streets when Bunty Aur Babli
released. Toys of Krishh were sold to strengthen Hrithik Roshan’s fan base among kids. John Abraham, Uday Chopra, Esha Deol and Rimi Sen went biking around city colleges to
promote Dhoom I.
The audiences of today have a limited attention span. A movie’s fortune is decided in the first three days. Hence, the cost of promotion today is very high. A UTV senior claims that publicity budget of some their films are as high as the film’s production cost. It’s no longer a five or 10 per cent of the overall budget of the film.
But film publicists are a mysterious and dark breed of fixers and arch media manipulators, as exemplified by publicity guru Mark Borkowski in his new book, The Fame Formula. Whether that’s true or not, for years PR exercises have been fundamental to the tinsel-town fantasy. They are, according to Borkowski, the hidden gatekeepers of the Hollywood dream machine “who guard its formula, often to the death”. They are an invisible army of Machiavellian schemers who were ferociously protective of their clients. The sordid tales within the pages of The Fame Formula say that one arranged a hasty abortion for Joan Crawford when she became pregnant from an affair with Clark Gable. Publicists also covered up the fact that the sexually rapacious Gable had apparently attended orgies with underage girls, organised by the English actor Lionel Atwill. They hid Spencer Tracy’s alcoholism and his alleged affair with 14-year-old Judy Garland.
The filmmakers are gradually becoming pros at pushing the right buttons to achieve better audience figures that could help establish more ways of audience manipulation. Though, every filmmaker knows that a good film is a good film and it makes money.
— anirudhya.mitra@gmail.com