Sujatha is a contemporary writer in Tamil literature. Sujatha has written many novels, short stories and many thoughtful segments in weekly magazines. He is well known for his innovative thinking especially for his science fictions in Tamil. Sujatha has also written screenplay and dialogue for a couple of Tamil movies. He has written dialogues for movies of many great directors like Bharathi raja, Shankar, Kamal haasan, Maniratnam, Rajiv Menon. Many of his novels are also made into movies. He wrote dialogues for four Maniratnam movies viz., Roja, Thiruda Thiruda, Uyirae (Dil Se) and Kannathil Muthamittal. So with much of experience in both on and off screen writing, he is the right person to write a book on this topic ?How to write Screenplay?.
?How to write Screenplay? is a book written on the basics in techniques of writing screenplay for a movie. Maniratnam has forwarded this book by writing an introduction to the book himself. The exposure about movie making is more nowadays; people have started to talk about screenplay, editing, shot composition, camera angle and other finer aspects of movie making. Even a layman says, ?the story is good and different but the screenplay is bad? about a movie.
Many of the Indian films fail due to a bad screenplay. Many new directors write a good plot but they lack knowledge in the art of screenplay writing. So in this scenario it is necessary for such a book. Though there are lot of books on screenplay writing by foreign authors written based on Hollywood method of movie making. But so far no books have been published on screenplay by an Indian author based on Indian films and its method of filmmaking.
In the preface, the author clearly explains his intention of writing this book. And he says this is pertained only to Tamil cinema. I could not agree with him, he has not explained anything in specific differentiating that this technique is followed only in Tamil cinema. Everything what he has discussed in this book equally holds good for bollywood also.
The content of the book is basic and it fits for any kind of movie romance, thriller, family drama, adventure, science fiction, comedy, action, musical etc., I think even the movies for which we say have a different screenplay like Alaipayuthey, Virumandi, Ayutha Ezuthu (Yuva), Kudaikkul Mazhai etc., screenplay of these movies also have all the basic elements of the screenplay discussed in this book.
The book has totally 20 chapters. It also includes a sample screenplay and a short story written by Sujatha himself. I should say the book is well organized. The chapters are in right sequence and feds you the method slow and steady. He has analyzed a lot and gives the juice of his analysis, as these are the roots of writing screenplay.
The best thing about the book is that it is very simple and easy to understand even for those who are not familiar with the jargons of cinema. He took lot of popular Tamil movies and well-known scenes in it to elaborate the techniques and that makes it even more interesting and easier to understand. I liked the light wit and humor, which adds spice to the book. For instance,
In a chapter titled ?Building a Story?, he writes
?When you watch any shooting, you will hear director saying Start, Action, Take. Whenever a shoot of a scene starts director will say as ?Action? and this has a hidden meaning. A movie needs action and not mere words as dialogues. No director will say as Start, Speak, Take. Some mega serial directors may say like that but cinema needs action?.
He has sharply pointed out the difference between a drama (especially the way of making mega serials nowadays) and a cinema with some humor sense. At many places you can see sujatha bashing on serials like this.
Before reading this book I had a doubt about what role a director plays in a screenplay written by some other writer, I thought they are mere executers of what is written in the paper. This book clarifies my doubt and clearly tells us the limits of a screenplay writer who is not going to direct the movie and what more a director can add to the screenplay written by someone. The director is one who splits the scenes into shots and frames, he composes ever shot, decides the camera angle and position, extracts right expressions from the artists and many other onscreen details.
About the chapters in the book, in the very first chapter he simply and clearly makes us understand what is a screenplay and how a line in a story is transformed to a line in screenplay. Examples from the book,
1) Story told in words: ?Vijay went to central station?
Story told in visuals (Screenplay):?The car driven by Vijay enters the railway station?
2) Story told in words: ?Manohar is a lazy fellow. He doesn?t care about anything.?
Story told in Visuals (Screenplay): ?Manohar (entering the room) removes his shirt and throws it on the bed and takes his tooth brush from book shelf.?
He stresses the main difference between drama and a movie quite often in the book. He says drama is a ?Story told in words? but a movie is a ?Story told in Visuals?.
The book answers all basic questions a debut writer will have in mind about screenplay. Starting from what is a screenplay, scene, shot, frame it explains all about basic fish bone structure of the screenplay, characterization, target audience, how to increase the pace of the movie, how important is the dialogues for a scene, what has to be told and what has to be kept untold, if it has to be told when, where and by whom in a scene, building a story, making the flow of visual continuous etc.,
Sujatha has also included a short story titled ?Veliyetram? which is nothing but the ten-minute scene in ?Kannathil Muthamittal? written in short story format. It is nice to read a scene transformed into a short story and I was surprised how well Maniratnam picturised in the celluloid. After reading this I learnt how a writer helps director to add more details and authentication to the visuals.
Definitely this book is worth buying for the movie buffs and young directors. I don?t whether the English version of this book is available but those who know Tamil and aspire to become a screenplay writer and director can buy this book.
