Maybe it was the laid back setting and I mustered courage to show the survivors of the night clips from the old version of That Four Letter Word. The version we had trashed. I didn’t half expect the crowd to be awake for the film we played at 4 a.m. Thank you guys.

Sagaro has a report here.

Here’s my own post on the Roof Top experience.

That Four Letter Word will return back to Studio 5, Sathyam Cinemas this weekend. A few days ago, I was so sure that not more than 20 people would actually wake up to watch TFLW so early on a weekend.

I was so wrong. We had a little over 50 per cent occupancy on Saturday morning. And then, over 80 per cent of the hall was full the very next morning.

Thank you Madras for waking up early on a Sunday and making it to the theatres just to watch the movie.

Due to public demand, we’re bringing the movie back at 11 a.m. just for all those of you who complained that 10.30 was too early. So all you guys who still haven’t got a chance to see the film, here are a coupla more chances. March 10th & 11 (Morning show @ 11 a.m.)

The advance bookings will open on Thursday and you can book online through that yellow banner on the sidebar towards your right. Since this is a digital film, for best results, do watch it from the back rows. I thank each and every one of you who have seen the film for your support.

If you didn’t like the film, I’m truly sorry I let you down. And all those who’ve seen it three times or more, I can’t thank you enough. I’m really touched that some of you have listed That Four Letter Word among your favourite films on Orkut. I’m not sure if it deserves a place there but thank you so very much for being kind.

I was talking to one of my friends about how people perceive a film like That Four Letter Word.

Some end up reviewing it like it’s another mainstream movie or a Hollywood romantic comedy in the theatres. And, some take it so seriously and take it up as their subject of critique.

But thankfully, there have also been many who have seen it for what it really is.

Paintings and posters should never be compared by the same set of parameters.

Posters are designed for a purpose. To deliver a message to a mass. There’s a certain amount of slickness in production, boldface screamers, simple smart copy and colourful visuals with instant appeal, tailored to deliver the communication to a mass audience. Or, like most commercial cinema, it aims at giving you pleasure for the money you’ve paid. But being a whore filmmaker needs a certain amount of shamelessness.

Paintings, however, are just an expression of the artist. Almost like an extension of his thought-process and imagination. Or, like most art cinema, it aims at giving the creator all the pleasure. But, we all know that wankers do it only because they got no takers. So, Is TFLW a poster or a painting?

Neither. As a beginner, I do not have the skills required for a painting. And with my limited resources, I cannot afford the production values a poster requires.

So what is TFLW? The independent film That Four Letter Word, at best, works as a scrapbook.

A scrapbook that’s personal, random and straight from the heart. It has these sketches of characters, especially, those you would instantly identify among your friends. It tells you only as much as you need to know, as much as any comic book would tell you about its heroes. It does not say one of these characters is you. It only hints that you could be any of them or all of them at different points in your life. Each character epitomises and personifies one way to live your life.

That sort of generalisation was needed so that we could face off one approach with another. It is this generalisation that has worked with the lowest common denominator among the youth. And it is this generalisation that has made a coupla inexperienced critics call the film ‘shallow’.

At another level, this is a film on male bonding. And it is not about the girls and their lives.

The girls are just sub-plots and their role in the film is limited to their impact on the lives of the four central characters (Which is why all posters and publicity have more of the guys and less of the girls). The girls’ approach to life and backstory is explained in the comic book right at the beginning of the film. That’s all you need to know about them.

In fact, a lot of women have been able to identify with the way the guys live their lives. Because, like Vishal, they sometimes wear their heart on the sleeve. Like Prashant, sometimes they have a head on their shoulder. Like Sunil, they have been confused. Like Zebra, they have sought escape through alcohol.

Like I explained to someone in the comments section of the ‘Nishabd’ review, we can only judge the depth or shallowness of a script depending on what the filmmaker is trying to say. If Varma wants us to understand the love story between a 60 year old man and 18 year old girl, he needs to show and tell us more than shaved legs.

He needs to give us a glimpse into the conversations that led to the unusual attraction. So what am I trying to say in my film? The only point I’m making through the film That Four Letter Word is that different people have different approaches towards chasing their dreams.

We do not pass value judgements on whether you should be Vishal and listen to your heart all the time or that you should be Prashant and use your head all the time. We are just telling you that even if you are as confused as Sunil is in the film or as escapist as Zebra in the film, life has its ways of bringing you solutions.

All TFLW says, like Sunil often says in the film, is that God is just the scriptwriter. It is upto each one of us to do what we want with that script. We have to direct that script the way we want to do it. It is up to us whether we want to keep the sad scenes short or indulge in the fun scenes for a little longer. No matter how we direct that scene, we have no control over the new twist that the next morning brings with it. So if you are like Vishal, you might still end up becoming Prashant and if you are Prashant, you might end up becoming Vishal.

Watch the film with this perspective and you’ll know what I mean. We don’t have the answers. Life has them.

That Four Letter Word is about the people we know so very well. Ourselves.

Since the film is just a scrapbook intended to trigger memories of your days at the crossroads of life, I urge the bitter critics of the film to tell me what they think is missing from what they ought to know.

Because, honestly, that would really help me while scripting my next film, something that I have been doing off late. As I do that, I’m tempted to design a “poster”.

Not because it says the movie is really good. It doesn’t.

Besides, we’ve had many other reviews where people’ve liked the film.

This review is special because it is honest and well, critical.

Baddy does not know this but I had a sleepless night before the press show wondering what he was going to say.

Because, it is criticism from people you respect that always matters. I’ve said this before on many occasions, he is the best in the business. Raja is murderously good but Baddy’s reviews are always more likeable given the down-to-earth tone he uses even while trashing a film.

I didn’t realise until someone (I think some disgruntled anonymous reader) pointed out recently that my reviews sound patronising. Point well taken.

So the morning of the press show, I went to bed at four and I just couldn’t sleep till 6.30 a.m. And I had to be up by seven again to go check the projector. You can quite imagine the anxiety when I landed up at the theatre to find out that the lip-sync was completely off. And, the picture quality was grainy. Thankfully, we were able to fix all of that before the commerical release.

Was he going to hate it? I had never been more nervous all my life. It was like my favourite teacher had just taken my answer-paper and he was going to grade it in the next 91 minutes.

If he failed me, I knew I had to go back to school and learn everything I learnt all over again. Because, he’s the teacher. He knows his stuff. He can’t be wrong. After the movie, when I was playing host to Vikram and attending to the NDTV crew, the only thing on my mind was what was Baddy going to say.

Vikram was obviously nice and said he loved the movie, just like Suriya had said it earlier. And I was never sure if they meant it because stars are polite to everybody. When Baddy came out of the hall smiling, it was a relief.

More when he said, “I had a good time. It was okay. What do you mean it’s a not bad film? It was really okay.”

He said he would talk to me about it at length. But, I wanted a progress report and see how many marks I got. I requested him if he can review it at leisure.

Within a week, he did. Thank you, Baddy.

This gives me the courage to start on my next film. We’re starting in May.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here are your last two chances to catch it in the theatres.

Thursday and Friday. 4.30 p.m.

We’re still averaging about 85 per cent in terms of collections in five days though, in spite of having ‘Eklavya’ and ‘Music and Lyrics’ in the same slot as us.

Sathyam Cinemas had already committed to Warner Bros for The Departed for this week’s release. Also, there’s ‘Ghost Rider’ and Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Nishabd’ fighting for slots from Friday. Deepa Mehta’s ‘Water’ is waiting in queue too but might not make it for this Friday.

So, they called me today to tell me that they are shifting TFLW to the weekend morning slot (That’s so early that I’m sure no one in my target audience will bother waking up on the weekend but if you are an early riser, hey! You can still catch it during the weekend morning slot!)

For the rest of us normal regular people, it’s the last two days to catch the movie.

You can book your tickets by clicking the banner on the right of this page. So there. Another classic example of how difficult it is for indie cinema to survive when big banners and studios are fighting for slots. We surely need more multiplexes, hopefully equipped with digital projection systems.

I should add here that Sathyam Cinemas has been extremely kind to us. They’ve given us all the marketing support we needed and valuable ad space.

Thank you Supriya, Andy, Nandini, Valli, Ashwini, George, Chetan, Rajkumar, Bhavesh and of course Swaroop and Kiran!

You guys have done your bit to support a small film in an industry dominated and dictated by studios.

We are in the process of finalising nation-wide release plans and I will have details shortly. Still contemplating if we have the resources to do road shows across different cities and if it makes sense in the first place. Especially, because promotions for a theatrical release are so much effort and a lot of money. At the moment, it doesn’t seem worth it for one week.

Besides, the revenue for independent cinema, in any case, is not from the box office. In fact, the box office accounts only for not even 5 per cent of the revenue potential. The major revenue for independent films is from satellite and TV rights.

And then, there’s also DVD and video rights. Also, there’s revenue potential from International rights that could turn out to be a bumper, before we finally put it up on the Internet.

People have been asking me about my next film and I wish I could start right away. But this whole distribution exercise is turning out to be an eye-opener. I got a call today from someone who wanted the film for South Africa. They hadn’t even seen the film. She wanted to know how much I wanted for the film over phone, hardly a minute into the call. It sounded like a prank. It probably is. But, the point here is that there are so many markets around the world and so many places that we can reach simply because we’ve made this film in English.

But it’s time to put the channel in place. What’s the point of making another independent film without putting a system in place? I strongly believe that once we’ve established a proper channel and forge alliances with companies and agents around the world, we’re in for a digital revolution.

Indie cinema can be industry by itself. We started out Made in Madras inkOperated! with the vision of making every first time filmmakers dream come true. Which means, if you have a script with fresh thought in it, an original idea, passion and conviction to make your film, we will produce your movie.

Alright, I don’t want people mailing me starting today. So let me clarify, that’s our vision for tomorrow.

First, we need to take TFLW around the country. And then, the world.

My art director Incognito has put up a post on what the film means to her.

Even on days we didn’t have crew availability, we still had Incognito double up as First Assistant Director. I still remember we shot the game show scene with just the actor, the cinematographer, Incognito and her co-art director Preethi at Preethi’s house.

The girls have done a phenomenal job with a zero budget. Well, almost zero.

Thank you Incognito, thank you Preethi.

We passed it!!

95 seats today! YES!!

There were three seats booked until noon. And then 60 were sold till four. Exactly 70 at 4.20 p.m. for the 4.30 show. We finished at 95 seats today, that’s a 65 per cent collection on a weekday.

Even a mainstream film like Eklavya (finally saw it, review coming up soon) had only a 60 per cent collection for the matinee.

We had full houses during the weekend but the weekend is no indication really for how good a film is doing.

Even bad films do well on the weekend. It’s the Monday test that we were anxious about because on a Monday afternoon at Sathyam, you can get tickets to any movie you want.

Which means, 95 people chose to watch That Four Letter Word over ‘Ekalavya’ and ‘Music and Lyrics.’ So there it is, we passed the test.

That makes it a 87 per cent opening for the first four days. Thank you everybody who’s seen and supported this small little film about regular people, their ordinary lives and their ordinary dreams.

You’ve just given the courage to many young filmmakers to go ahead and make their own movie. Do spread the word. Tell people how you found the film. I’ll link even the bad reviews as long as they don’t contain spoilers.

Here’s one that calls it an average film. It probably is. Or, maybe it is a bad film. Maybe, I don’t know. You tell me. And tell me why. Like my favourite critic writes in his latest post on reviewing:

“What I try to do is write about why I felt about a film the way I did. If I liked it – why? And if I didn’t like it – why not?”

Oops, before I forget, Congratulations on the Indiebloggie, Baddy! You guys have read many reviews/blogs that have said nice things and I think that’s the problem.

You have great expectations from someone who’s made his first film with four lakh rupees and 18 days of shoot. But thank you for that faith. I’m thrilled with the way Madras has responded.

Independent cinema and indie filmmakers have reason to celebrate.