MUMBAI: Writer producer Aseem Arrora is all excited about the awards season! His last film as a writer and producer - The Sabarmati Report - will be in the contest with other films. Talking about his inspiration Aseem says, ”One of the main reasons for me to start writing was Mansoor Khan’s Qayamat se Qayamat Tak. I was seven and was blown away by the sheer power of cinema. How it could make me cry and feel for the love story knowing fully well that the two actors were alive in real life. Right from writing to execution, it was compelling and also won hearts. The movie gave us actors like Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla and fresh cinema grammar.”
In the recent times we have seen artificial intelligence being used in various creative platforms. How can that change the world of writing in Hindi films. Aseem shares his views, ”AI is a powerful tool. We must quickly align ourselves to its strengths. If it makes the craft better then why shy away. I have been using AI image generation and research tools and they are a great help. With time if one can learn to get precise with the prompts, it can actually be a time saver. However AI, can’t really help you write scenes or for that matter a screenplay. We should use it as an assistant and not as a crutch.”
Aseem who has written films like Malang, Baazar, Bell Bottom, Mission Majnu, Freddy, Crew, The Buckingham Murders, Vedaa and shows like POW and Mukhbir, feels the parallel media (social media) continuously posting and sharing reviews can never be the final verdict for any film. He says, ”To each his own. It doesn’t influence me at all. There was a time when I was looking at Twitter reactions to a show I’d written and the producer promptly warned me. Turned out that taking social media reactions seriously didn’t help ratings but our own conviction did. Also, I am not too active on social media. The toxicity gets to me. I only use it as a pr tool or to have a time line of movies I consume and react to. When it comes to reviews there are few people who I take seriously. Couple of them are professional film critics and the others aren’t. The saddest part is film reviews has become a business. Every flick gets a poster of four stars splashed all over. The integrity of the profession has undoubtedly taken a beating but thanks to a few critics who analyse films well and do an essay like review. That I seek. It’s good to know how deep can somebody read the film whether they like it or not. But then these are countable few.”
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