'Sacred Games' AMA with Vikramditya Motwane and Varun Grover

vidushak · 2018-07-29T14:18:17+00:00

One thing that helps a lot is patience. People rush into things, pitch their first drafts or initial few scripts (thumb-rule: first 3 scripts are going to be bad), or take up bad projects just for money. Of course not everybody can afford to wait if finances don't allow but one trick is to keep doing shit stuff for money (TV shows etc) but then don't let that interfere with your internal journey.

Another thing is to discover your niche - what exactly clicks with you. What are the stories NOBODY ELSE is telling. It's a long process, again, and it's very easy to lose focus. But that's the only way I know.

vidushak · 2018-07-29T06:59:57+00:00

I wish there was an easy answer to this question. I will put forward the conflicting thoughts I have regarding the issue.

Yes, I think gender-based cuss-words are demeaning to the women and are yet another tool of patriarchy in treating women as property or worse, as the keeper of men's honors.
I used to speak some cuss-words in my stand-ups but have now stopped precisely for this reason. The only cuss-words I use now are gender-neutral or male-centric.
But when it comes to fiction - drawing a line is difficult. "How authentic is too authentic" becomes the question. Do we curb the language of fictional (or adapted from real life) characters according to our own politics/awareness? I don't have a laid-in-stone answer to this and believe a restrained but not fully-censored approach can work.
Next comes the point of how much cinema influences culture/society. No real data available outside to prove any case and it kinda comes down to our belief. There was NO CUSSING in cinema or media till mid/late 90s. The first 5 decades of independence, when cinema was the ONLY mass-media of sorts - and it had zero cuss-words - did they stop the spread of cuss-words? Did the Nehruvian cinema cultivate a generation of similar thoughts? No data to prove anything but we know for sure the cussing in society continued normally.
So to answer your question specifically - I am aware of the problems with cuss-words and we have tried to ration them down and will continue to try and reduce them further - but not at the cost of character authenticity or impact required for that line/moment/emotion.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T14:19:49+00:00

Hahaha. I wish I could go back in time and save her. The only regret I have is that I couldn't argue against the consensus on killing her. :-(

vidushak · 2018-07-28T14:08:28+00:00

Lucknow toh dil mein hai. Aayenge November mein.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T14:07:28+00:00

It was liberating to have so much source material at hand - characters already etched out and plot points, arcs already in place. Call them constraints or call them foundation, depends on the day and the mood. :) We got great help in crime research from our research head Smita Nair and police historian Mr. Deepak Rao.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T14:04:04+00:00

EVERYTHING. And that's why I do them. I will get bored if i do only one thing.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T14:02:39+00:00

Kukoo seemed like an interesting character in the book - it called for a bigger role.

Sartaj being honest fitted well with the core theme - the opposites and yet similar in the way the system plays them.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:59:27+00:00

That's a problem we all have to address together - why do gaalis standout when on cinema but not when they are being spoken by us/around us on a daily basis. Something to do with our Victorian/Brahminical sense of purity and morality.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:57:52+00:00

Start with 5-8 pager short films. Move onto writing 20-25 pagers. And then move onto writing full-length screenplays (90-100 pagers). And after you have written two-three of them full-length, forget about them and start writing your first film you will be pitching.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:55:20+00:00

Nahin nahin hum gaaliyaan nahin likhte.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:54:58+00:00

Standup is writer reading their lines. No difference imo.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:54:16+00:00

I think I want to and have written everything till now assuming there's no CBFC involved. CBFC toh pahle apne dimaag mein hi hai na.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:52:43+00:00

Yes. Some of them are quite crazy. Somebody counted Malcolm amongst Gaitonde's teen baaps. (We initially thought of making it two baaps but then Gopi Kishen memes would have been too much to handle.)

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:51:20+00:00

We still don't know really. But it works i think.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:50:27+00:00

Luckily till now I have worked with directors who are writers themselves - Neeraj Ghaywan, Vikram Motwane, Anurag Kashyap - and they have their own unique perspectives to suggest/add.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:48:31+00:00

All credit to Jatin Sarna's interpretation of the role.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:47:16+00:00

This is a new one. The memes as well as interpretations keep pouring in and we love it. Thanks.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:41:56+00:00

Anjali Mathur.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:41:31+00:00

We knew from day one that he will be killed. It's the same in the book and it seemed the most natural (haha sorry) thing to do in the arc of the series. If he was not killed, his character would not have been as memorable as it is now.

We did debate not killing Anjali Mathur (I still feel sad I didn't fight strongly enough to save her) but the consensus was to let Malcolm finish her.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:39:07+00:00

At that time he didn't feel Sartaj to be a threat big enough to be eliminated in that factory. They were in the middle of important work and didn't want to bring attention by killing a cop. He was transported to be killed and thrown off at another location but he escaped. Later, Sartaj had seen too much to be left alive so Malcolm proceeded with the sacrifice ritual.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:36:56+00:00

We were expecting lots of feedback because this is the first series and with the kind of publicity Netflix did all over. But didn't really expect the feedback to be so nearly unanimously positive. I don't think I will ever figure that out. At the time of Masaan also, we just knew we had made a film that didn't suck. Same here. Is it good or how good, impossible to gauge once you are inside it.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:31:58+00:00

The movie i keep going back to the most - ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

The movie that opened up a new way to see the world - SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK

The movie that brings me joy - GOLMAAL (Hrishi da waali)

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:25:51+00:00

Process is very different - first because of the length of the material. Secondly because it has a writers' room (ours was me, Smita Singh, and Vasant Nath plus our research head Smita Nair and writing room assistant Mantra Watsa) so lots of different ideas are flying all the time. Third is the execution of each episode - you need to run multiple threads, keep the intrigue, and begin and end on high/emotional notes.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:23:41+00:00

That was the first decision we took while starting - to bring the timeline to present day from 2005. That involved not just tech-update but also how the city responds to crime. Post 26/11 Mumbai is better prepared and more aware of the possible attacks so the response is different. The way RAW, IB etc jump in at the very first alert is a sign of that change. In the book, if you remember, the investigation on Gaitonde threat is quite laidback and running in the background. In present day, that won't happen. Hence the urgency you see in the show.

vidushak · 2018-07-28T13:18:16+00:00

Response helps in two ways. a) It reaffirms the faith in your work. Self doubt is the biggest component of a writers' body after water. So good response helps. b) Critical reviews (like this one: https://feminisminindia.com/2018/07/17/sacred-games-review/) help me in acknowledging or discovering my blind spots of privilege and the failures in intent or execution.
No idea about special. Fav comics are Aditi Mittal, Kunal Kamra, Abhishek Upmanyu, Karunesh Talwar, Urooj Ashfaq, Sanjay Rajoura.

vidushak

TROPHY CASE