The last few years has seen a major shift in storytelling. The trends and themes that have dominated the silver screen have been big blockbusters with larger than life actors and large budgets that require larger returns to break even. The 100 crore myth was born! If you weren’t a 100 crore actor or director no one paid attention to you. The stories didn’t matter and there was no logic in the screenplay. Plus there were the paid stories, publicity and the entire sham of post success parties, which all those in the know sniggered at.
And then suddenly we had films like Dum laga Ke Haisha, Hate Story 2, Talvar, Mary Kom, Pyaar ke Side Effects and even Tanu Weds Manu and the equation started changing. Storytelling was back! And great quality cinema was given a push. So here is what I think and hope would be the future of stories.
In 2016 we will see many more women oriented films where actresses won’t just be there for item numbers or as a heroes’ love interest. Bollywood will be ruled by dramas, biopics and thrillers. While the big blockbusters may remain, the trend will be towards smaller budget films with good quality content. The mood of the generation will also help the film’s box office collection. The producers however will still bank on the larger pictures and new directors might not have so much support.
The ads will become smarter, younger, and trendier. We saw a shift in 2015 from ads reaching out to the middle class, to a younger generation that had the power to spend. The stories became about family and transformation. Ads that had bigger budgets to show who we were and what we should do.
Next year we will see more ads with stories. The trend of 2015 will continue but it will be more celeb oriented unfortunately, since we are a Bollywood driven society. Sometimes the celeb over powers the story. People only remember how pretty or good looking the celeb and the quality of the ad suffers since no one remembers the brand!
A great trend that may happen in 2016 will be new digital series and ads that are integrated for stories on the Internet. There will be entertainment for the internet generation. A generation that’s on the move. As we saw with the YRF series, TVF Pitchers there will be many more shows that will have brands integrated as a part of their story telling but not take away from the fun. Directors will move from making films to producing digital series and actors will move from TV ads to featuring in films. The combination and amalgamation will be an exciting new trend for 2016 where we will get to see more of our favourite stars and directors and watch interesting stories.
A fantastic new trend of 2016 will be books being converted for the digital series and films. Books are stories that have already got the approval of a market and have connected with a section of society. Filmmakers would be wise to develop screenplays from already existing books.
Here’s hoping for great stories through ads, digital series and films in 2016!
by Madhuri Banerjee, scriptwriter of Hate Story 2