The influence of Globalisation on Indian film production industry

What is Globalisation? An Introduction

Many economists believe that Globalisation has helped most of the developing countries industrially, financially and economically. It has had various after effects on those economies, both positive and negative. Similar to how it affected all other sectors it had affected the film production industry as well.

Though international tourism contributes to cultural exchange, an effect of Globalisation, it is cinema that plays the most major role in altering the living styles of a society. The impact that cinema could bring about in any society is massive. A football world cup might be a bigger event than a cinema where people from all over meet and exchange cultures, but as cinema portrays the feelings, living style and culture of a society, the impact it has over other media is massively huge.

Effects of Globalisation on film production industries

The most important effect of Globalisation on film industries was that it enabled a bigger market for films worldwide. It was after the 1990’s that films started to get released worldwide. This increased the size of the film market and massive growth of revenue in result. The gross profit that Hollywood generated in the year 1997 was $30 billion, where Titanic alone contributing more $1.8 billion. (Technology in Indian culture and effects of Globalisation of Technology and media, no date) According to the IMDB (2010), the blockbuster film Avatar had collected $500 million by January 31^st 2010, whereas its worldwide collection a week before had crossed $2billion. It was almost the same with Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince. It grossed around $990 million worldwide and $301 million in U.S.A (IMDB, 2009). It can be observed from this that a worldwide release definitely increases the revenue by four to five times.

According to Taylor (1995, p. 414), co-productions were initially perceived to enhance collaboration between countries with small production industries which would be able to pool resources and compete in an international market. The increase in the number of co-productions, an effect of Globalisation, was seen in the film production industry as well. This divide in budget naturally resulted in an increase of the same. Increase in budget helped the producers in that region to produce better films. Baltruschat (2002) believes that co-productions have the potential to hybridise cultures and their diversifications.

Globalisation has really helped ‘Third cinema’ or ‘Third World Cinema’.  (http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Third-Cinema.html, no date)The release of Latin American and Iranian films worldwide was a big support for them commercially. The London Iranian Film Festival and the London Latin-American Film Festivals are proof’s for that. Such film festivals prove that the love for such films in the developed world has increased a lot. Certain group of people raised another opinion that co-producers turn into dictators and therefore film-makers lose their freedom for expression. This group believes that globalisation has turned cinema into a commodity and has highly affected its artistic value. 

Indian Film Industry

Indian film industry is a leading Industry where films are produced in 24 languages. Most number of films is produced in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. The first Indian feature film was produced in the year 1913. Indian film industry had worked just like the Hollywood until the 1960’s. Artists had worked on contractual basis for particular studio. It was after the 1900’s that artists started to work on a freelance basis. (http://www.indiaonestop.com/film.htm, no date)

 It is a fact that, India is the world’s largest producer of films. (Screen Australia, 2010) According to Screen Australia, India had produced 1288 films in 2009, which was around 24% of the films produced worldwide. The amount of films produced in India was almost the double than that production in the United Stated (677 films in 2009, which is around 12% of the world share). Whereas the cost of production of films in India is much lower than many other developed countries. When developed countries produce films for billions of dollars, India does it in millions. According to Screen Australia (2010) the total production cost of Indian films in 2010 was just $195 million, whereas that in U.S.A was $13,289 million.

Effects of globalisation on the Indian film production Industry.

Formation of international joint- ventured production houses was one of the main effects of Globalisation. Mostly the ventures were between Hollywood an Indian production houses. ‘Studio 18’ is an example for that

It is a joint venture between ‘Viacom’ a U.S. based communication company and ‘Network 18’, an India based media conglomerate. Studio18 has produced a total of 15 films and have released it worldwide.

Another effect of globalisation was the absorption of small Indian studios by large International production houses. This has acted both in positive ways and negative. The positive factor is that many artists get to work with an international company. But, unfortunately the negative side is that that is not what happens most of the time. An example of such absorption was the Sony Pictures taking over the Chennai based animation studio ‘Imageworks’.

It was definitely for the good of the company because later it had largely contributed to films like Spiderman 3 and I am Legend.

In the recent years a lot of international producers have put in money directly into single films. Sony Pictures in 2007 associated with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, directly entered into the market producing a Hindi film named Saawariya. Though Saawariya was not a commercial success in India, the film grossed $805,054 in U.S.A alone (I.M.D.B, 2007). Later in 2009 Warner Brothers produced a film associating with Ramesh Sippy Entertainment named Chandini Chowk to China. The film grossed around $1 million from U.S.A alone (I.M.D.B, 2009).

Exchange of talent

Globalisation has helped the film production companies to share the international pool of talent. The rate of usage of international talent increased tremendously after the 1990’s. Later, many artists from international cinema have worked for Indian cinema and vice versa.

Some of the international artists who worked for Indian film are:

Danny Pierce: Stunt coordinator Danny Pierce (films like: The Pirates of the Caribbean) had recently worked for an Indian film ‘Kites’. Snoop Dog: Hip-hop artist Snoop Dog had worked on the sound track of a Hindi film named Singh is King. The film is considered to be a hit in the U.K. A studio that recently worked for an Indian film was the Stan Winston Studios for Enthiran. They had worked on the animatronics. According to Indo Asian News service (2010), Enthiran is the most expensively produced film among Indian films. The film which spent around $38 million was produced in two different languages, Hindi and Tamil.

Some of the Indian artists who worked for international films:

A.R.Rahman who composed and produced music for the film Slumdog Millionaire and Resul Pookutty who mixed the sound for the same film are one of the main examples.  A major studio that contributed and is still contributing to international films is the Ramoji film city in Hyderabad, India. It is in fact the world’s largest integrated film studio complex. It provides locations, lights, grip equipment, camera, production crew, set designs, props & costumes and post production (Processing, editing, mixing, printing & duplicating). More than 15 international projects have been worked in Ramoji Film city so far.

As described in their Credo Ramoji believes that film-makers can, “walk in with a script and walk out with a canned film.”(Ramoji Film City, no date)

Future

In November 2010 a pact was signed in the Paramount Pictures Studio between the Hollywood and the Bollywood. According to Martinez and Narayan (2010), the pact mainly aims to strengthen the motion picture production, distribution, technology, content protection and commercial cooperation. Many companies from Motion Picture association India had signed the pact including UTV Motions Pictures and Reliance BIG Pictures. Los Angeles Mayor welcomed more Indian filmmakers to shoot in like last years films, ' My name is Khan' and 'Kites'.

“Steven Spielberg in Indian deal as LA moguls fall for Bollywood charms” This was title of an article in Sunday times. Blakely (2008) reports that Anil Ambani of the Reliance BIG Pictures had invested $550 million into Steven Spielbergs Dreamworks productions. Dreamworks is an independent company which is separated from Paramount and Reliance has nearly taken half of its shares. Dreamworks will now be working on 5-6 films every year (Wells, 2009)

Conclusion

When taking an analysis of the Indian film Production industry from 1990 to 2010, the following can be observed.

·        Increase in the number of worldwide releases of films.

·        Increase in the total budget of films.

·        Increase in number of local, international and joint production houses

·        Increase in local investment on International studios

·        Increase in individual co-productions with direct investments

·        Increase in the sharing of the talent pool.

So, just as like how globalisation has helped in the development of any other sector of a developing country, it has helped the Indian Film Production Industry as well. The Indian control over the international film arena has started to increase. India has had no restriction in the number of foreign releases, unlike China, which restricts foreign films to an amount of 20. This had made a slight impact last year. The number of international releases had gone up in India. But still, India continued to be the largest producer Films. We shall expect India to produce a larger amount of films for the international audience in the coming years.

References

Balakrishnan, C (2004) ‘Impact of Globalisation on Developing Countries and India’, About Economics [Online]. Available at: http://economics.about.com/od/globalizationtrade/l/aaglobalization.htm

Baltruschat, D (2002) ‘Globalization and International TV and Film Co-productions: In Search of New Narratives’. Available at: http://web.mit.edu/cms/Events/mit2/Abstracts/DorisBaltruschat.pdf

Blakley, R. (2008) ‘Steven Spielberg in Indian deal as LA moguls fall for Bollywood charms’, The Sunday Times. Available at: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article4842613.ece

Film Reference (no date) ‘Third Cinema’. Available at: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Third-Cinema.html

Oxford Dictionary (1930) Oxford Printing Press [Online] Available at http://www.oed.com/

‘Technology in Indian culture and effects of Globalisation of Technology and media’ [Online]. Available at: http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~agupta/_projects/nontech/Technology%20And%20Culture/HU%20484%20-%20Technology%20and%20Culture%20Report.pdf

IMDB (2007) Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758053/business

IMDB (2009)  .Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417741/business

IMDB (2009) Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091229/business

IMDB (2010)  .Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/business

Indiaonestop (no date) ‘The Film Industry in India: An IndiaOneStop synopsis’. Available at: http://www.indiaonestop.com/film.htm (Accessed on: 5 January

Indo Asian News Service (2010) ‘Aishwarya looks smashing in Robot: Big B’

NDTV Movies [Online], Available at: http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_story.aspx?ID=ENTEN20100155406&keyword=bollywood&subcatg=MOVIESINDIA&cp

Martinez, M. Narayan, A. (2010) ‘Hollywood, Bollywood sign cooperation pact’, CNN Entertainment [Online]. Available at: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-11/entertainment/hollywood.bollywood_1_indian-studios-hollywood-and-bollywood-indian-production?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ

Ramoji Film City (no date) Available at: http://www.ramojifilmcity.com/flash/film/About_Ramoji.html (Accessed on 5 January 2010)

Screen Australia (2010) ‘Top 50 countries ranked by number of feature films produced, 2004–2009’. Available at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/gtp/acompfilms.html

 

Screen Australia (2010) ‘Top 20 countries ranked by production investment in feature films, 1999–2009’. Available at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/gtp/acompinvestment.html

Taylor, P.W. (1995). ‘Co-productionsóContent and Change: International Television in the Americas’. Canadian Journal of Communication, 20 (2): p.411-416.

Wells, D. (2010) ‘With Chandni Chowk Goes to China, Warner Bros looks for riches of the East’, The Sunday Times. Available at: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article5380999.ece

World Bank (no date) Globalisation and International Trade.  Available at: http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyondco/beg_12.pdf .( Accessed on: 5 January 2010)