Movies Can't Be Made With Exact Budget

Filmmaker Sinish Sreedharan has donned the hat of a producer as well as director for upcoming Tamil romantic-thriller Endrendrum and says that his experience has taught him that no film can be made on the exact budget set aside for it.

"Thousands of films stop midway because they exceeded their budget. There could be a film of a superstar too in it. I believe it's nearly impossible to make a film on the budget originally announced for a film. Those who claim to have made their films on exact budget are lying for sure," Sinish told IANS.

"It's very unlikely that a film gets wrapped up within the budget. Mostly, the budget of a film exceeds by a small or big margin. There are so many internal as well external factors," he added. For Endrendrum, Sinish started with a meagre budget, but he went broke in a few weeks.

"There are so many things that delayed my project. I set out to make my film in 25-30 days with a small budget, but I used the amount in just a few weeks and I haven't even finished 50 percent of the film. It's been nearly two years and my film is yet to be released," he said. Sinish believes it's important to find committed people to complete the film.

"My film got delayed because of the graphics work involved in it. I had outsourced the graphics work to a third party that has been undertaking such assignments for a long time. However, since mine was a low-budget film, it wasn't given due importance," he said. "The graphics work could've been completed in a few weeks, but they spent months on it.

They would only work on it when I was around, otherwise they would work on bigger films. There was no professionalism in their work," he added. Other learning experience for Sinish was not to mix friendship with profession. "I borrowed money from my friends for the film and I will always be indebted to them. But, when the project was being delayed, I was under a lot of pressure whether I would be able to repay them or not.

This is why it's important not to mix friendship with profession," he added. Endrendrum, a love story based on chaos theory, features Satish and Priyanka Reddy in lead roles. It also features Tamil filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon as the narrator. One should be jack-of-all-trades to survive in this field, he feels.

"It's very important to learn different crafts of filmmaking. You might not know when it will come in handy. After much delay, I managed to handle the graphics work of my film with some friends. One should be committed to a film, but not just to his role or designation," he said.

IANS