FilmIndia (1946)

vm This section is the monopoly of "JUDAS" and he writes what he likes and about things which he likes. The views expressed here are not necessarily ours, but they carry weight because they are written by a man who knows his job. THINK OF THE TECHNICIANS! The war has come and gone and though it has left behind famine and pestilence all over the country, it has inade the film producers rich beyond their expectations. Our producers evidently have a lot of money to spend the way we find them buying extensive lands for studios lit Chembur (India's future Jollywood) and ordering new rnachinery and equipment for post-war production. The number of producers has also multiplied beyond easy calculation. Government contractors, furniture merchants lind even street pedlars have become film producers these pays. There are at least two hundred pictures under production at the moment in Bombay. Add to this number [mother 150 from Calcutta, Lahore and Madras and wc |>hall have over 350 pictures in hand at the end of 1946, with the same number of release theatres we had before ihe war. During six years of war, producers reaped a rich hardest because any trash they produced turned into gold Lvith an ease that surprised them. They didn't bother ibout quality in production. They were just worried about Keeping the profits in hand and not letting them slip into the income-tax coffers. Numerous black-market rackets helped them to keep the profit intact. All this money is how coming out slowly to buy properties, studios and Equipment. But our producers seem to have forgotten some of hose film workers, without whose unstinted co-operation, o many pictures, be they even trash, would not have been iroduced. Our technicians worked night and day to give mr producers pictures after pictures which they turned nto gold. Quite a good quantity of that gold bought a number )f motor cars and a lot of property for some favourite itars, but the level of salaries paid to our technicians never mproved over the pre-war standard. Almost every one in the film industry, bar technicians ind studio workers, has made money during the war. Rut a good recordist still gets between five and six hundred upees a month and so does the cameraman. This is preisely what they got before the war, when the cost of iving was much cheaper than it is today. And all techniians, without a single exception, have worked almost 18 ™t of the 24 hours of the day to multiply the producers' noney-spinncrs. Our technicians have had no rest, no holidays, no xtra bonuses, no presents, no medical relief, no overtime payments and no thanks even. They have been mercilessly :xploited night and day without even an appreciation of heir work and contribution to the prosperity of the fib" ndustry. While others are rolling in their illegitimate profits, the technicians arc still poor-drcadfully poor. May ■ve know why? We can point out at least a dozen instances where amorous producers have purchased property for their favourite actresses paying fancy prices and in the same breath refused to pay overtime charges to their technicians. We know producers who have lost millions in mad gambling but haven't the heart to give a month's salary as a bonus to the technicians and the studio workers. As a rule our technicians are the best behaved folks in our film studios. During the last 30 years' of our film industry there has not been one incident of any technician having held up work for one reason or other. We have seen technicians, ill in body and bone and running up a temperature of 104 degrees, still doing their work without grumbling because their producers wanted the pictureready by a certain date. Like some of our directors and producers our technicians have never got themselves mixed up with the sex aspect of the industry. They have always shown uniform character in their work and behaviour. And yet these people who have given so much for the prosperity of our industry and its producers are still kept dreadfully poor and on wages which keep them only a little away from the starvation line. Is this fair? "40 CRORES" AND 400 MILLIONS Poor Pandit Indra! Little did he know the unreasonable temper of our countrymen when he wrote the Usha Dutt and Shombhu Mitra give a pathetic performance in "Dharti-ke-Lal" of People's Theatres.