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The day's proceedings got a tremendous launchpad with the key note
speech of noted scriptwriter Akash Khurana, who is the COO Motion
Pictures & Music, Nimbus Communications Ltd.
"Caution. Rejection and frustration are very much a part of a creative
person's life but don't let it stop you', Khurana told the eager
gathering.
According to him a good writer should basically offer an intriguing
story, get people involved in it and at the end of it all make complete
sense. He offered in a nutshell what according to him is a prerequisite
of a story: a fascinating subject, a great title, insight or an
action and a hook.
"We have good writers what we need are good mentors" he said as
a conclusion to his speech.
The first session of the day was a panel discussion on the business
of writing for television. Moderated by Indiantelevision.com CEO
Anil Wanvari, the panel had representation from the leading television
channels and included Sony Entertainment creative director Saurabh
Vanjara, advertising professional-turned-producer-writer-director-turned
filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, TV director Sanjay Upadhyaya, TV scriptwriter
Vinod Ranganath and Star India creative head Deepak Segal.
The panel agreed that writers should set aside any illusions or
possesiveness they have about their ideas, stories, concepts.
"While the writer is important, television programming is a
product that emerges out of the creative teamwork of a bunch of
people which includes, producers, the writer, the director and on
top of it all,the television channel," said Segal. "They
have to function like professionals do in any other career,"
added Agnihotri.
"Writers have to understand that channels are investing lots
of money in the idea and hence they should have a lot of say as
they are also dealing with advertisers who are putting in their
money in the hope of getting a sustainable TV show," pointed
out Vanjara.
"There's a lot of pain, a lot of hard work," said Ranaganath.
"The TV writer has to function within this framework and yet
be creative. TV scriptwriting is a career which is worth following."
The panel discussed how television writing is different from writing
for any other medium. While sharing their personal experiences as
creative professionals the members of the panel charted out what
a television writer is exactly supposed to churn out. They discussed
both the threats faced by the writer and his shortcomings.
'So you want to be a writer?' questioned former Sony programming
head and now scriptwriter Rekha Nigam. An interactive session that
began with an introspective question turned out to be an animated
one with all the participants chipping in with their ideas as they
went about drawing up character sketches of two main protagonists
for a story that had been suggested by one of them.
Saurabh Vanzara came up next and methodically presented what television
channels look for in a writer and in a script. He emphasized on
the importance of writers fleshing out the entire story, the need
for a concept, the screenplay. He offered a comprehensive list of
musts a writer should know while presenting his story to a channel.
"Interesting!" exclaimed celebrated writer, director and editor
Vivek Agnihotri while explaining what a good story should be like.
During the course of his session Vivek discussed what a content
provider, namely the writer, should, would and could expect from
a channel.
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