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Low-budget film is one shot on
a limited budget. Generally,
young or unknown directors often make low-budget films due
to their inability to get funding from big production
houses/studios, which are not willing to invest in
a film that appears unlikely to become successful.
Does it really mean that low budget films are for the
beginners to prove their mettle in the industry? If we observe,
Subhash Ghai, who set a new Bollywood record by pouring Rs. 15 cr
(Rs. 150 mn) into the production of the blockbuster film, Taal, experimented with a low budget film called Jogger's Park with Anant Balani as director. From
any perspective, late Anant Balani, who was a script writer and made
his directorial debut in the early 1990s, was not a novice.
Bollywood industry informally defines a low-budget movie as
one without the `Ks' i.e., `Khans' or `Kapoors' in its casting. The logic
is very simple, the Khans (Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman)
and Kapoors (Kareena) charge nearly
Rs. 7-8 cr for a film, which the small-film producers cannot afford.
But the definition sounds incomplete as it does not include
Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar Abhishek Bachchan,
Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif and some other Bollywood stars who
sometime demand more fees than the budget of a low-budget film. In fact, Aamir Khan, one among the popular Khans
of Bollywood, believes that a budget for a film is almost an alien concept. "At
Aamir Khan Productions (AKP), we don't work like this. I only make a film
I like and if I don't like a script, I don't make the film. It's as simple as
that," says Khan. The popular actor
believes that low-budget films make sense anytime. The risk is less and one
loses less money in case the film fails. |
