Tollywood town bereft of stories as writers turn directors

Hyderabad: Many Tollywood story writers are turning directors in a bid to secure better recognition and earn more money. These writers are tempted to take this route in the backdrop of stars and directors hijacking the credit for the success of films.

• Writers are increasingly turning directors to steal the limelight in the background of star-director combination taking all the credit for success of films
• They feel neglected because they are paid meagre remuneration, while the stars and the directors get lion’s share
• Tollywood getting plagued by lack of writers

Though it is the story idea that translates into a film, the writer is ignored in the filmdom. They are thus forced to embark on the venture and becoming directors to prove their mettle. Some writers feel that stars and directors consider them a disposable commodity. “It pains us a lot because the star and director take all the credit for success and leave us out in the cold.

Even during the promotion of films, we are nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that it is our story idea that makes a film to connect with viewers. Even remuneration of writers is meagre. We are paid a few lakh rupees, but stars and directors paid a king’s ransom,” rued a seasoned writer on condition of anonymity.

Apparently, after popular writers like Sukumar, Koratala Siva, Veeru Potla, B V S Ravi and Bobby became directors, top-notch writer Gopi Mohan is also planning to follow the same route in the footsteps of writers like Vakkantham Vamsi and Sreedhar Seepana, who are set to wield the megaphones soon.

This may leave the T-town bereft of original story ideas. “It is true that T-town is plagued by lack of story writers since most of the writers have turned directors. Now T-town cannot help creating a talent pool of story writers, or remaking Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi movies by paying huge amounts of money for securing remake rights.

Instead, top producers and stars should encourage young writers with refreshing ideas to bridge this gap” said director Ravi Chavali, However, director Veera Sankar has a different take on it, “It is not easy to step into the shoes of a director. Not only writers, even some choreographers and cameramen have tried their hand in directorial ventures, but failed miserably.

They assume that director’s job is limited to saying ‘ready, action and, cut,’ but they fail to understand creative work a director does. Director should have imaginative visual sense, skill to extract performances and command members of 24 crafts while shooting, so for no reason a director is called ‘captain’ of the ship,” he added.

He cited the example of a recent writer-turned-director who was clueless on what to do on the muhurat day itself. Technicians on the set had to help him. “Producers can ask writers to shoot a few scenes on a trial basis and give them a break, if satisfied, otherwise it would be a mess,” he added.

Asked about the big success tasted by writer-turned-directors like Dasari, Jandhyala, Trivikram Srinivas to name a few, he said, “It showed these writers had directorial skills and moved up the ladder, but there are others like Paruchuri Bros, Satyamurthy and Yendamuri who proved to be star writers but could not taste similar success as directors, so they returned to writing.”