July 26, 2008 6:32:08 PM IST Bollywood Trade News Network

Abbas Tyrewala, the writer of films like ASOKA, DARNA MANA HAI, MUNNABHAI MBBS, and MAQBOOL recently conducted a guest lecture on Screenwriting at Whistling Woods International.

Mr. Tyrewala also shared information of the screenwriting of his directorial debut JAANE TU...YA JAANE NA.

Students at Whistling woods and the freshmen in particular, could not have asked for a more rocking start to academia: the ''house-full'' screening of first time director Abbas Tyrewala's runaway hit JAANE TU....YA JAANE NA, followed by the free wheeling discussion with the man himself.

Abbas' story of his seemingly effortless journey from the days of his childhood when he wrote poetries, to writing jingles for commercials, while in college, to his foray into cinema seems like the stuff of which dreams are made.

Filmmaker Subhash Ghai generously played host (taking time off from the shoot of his own film) and set things in perspective, describing JTYJN, as a complete film by a competent writer.
But once the hoopla over his actual presence at the campus was got over with, what followed was nothing less than a Master Class in the Art and Craft of Story Telling. And the enthralled student audience hung on to every word.

On the subject of what constituted a good script, Abbas reiterated emphatically that a writer had to accept the fact, ''A script is essentially raw material for a finished product of a director. Don't try to put your signature on it if you are not the director. Share the vision of the director, don't work against it. Also, in narrating of the tale, guide the audience's eye, but do not treat the audience as an external factor. And to never forget: Does the story ask `a question worth asking, and having done so....spend the entire duration of the film, in trying to answer that question?

How did he view the role and contribution of the story to filmmaking?

Says Abbas who has done it all, writing stories, lyrics, dialogues, screenplays and even a shot at acting ( a cameo in MAQBOOL!), ''The joy of coming up with a good story for a film.....with a good resolution can never be underestimated''. Having said that, he also believes that the ultimate high would be in crafting a good script even as he admits that ''script-writing is very lonely''. On the other hand, Direction, according to Abbas, is above all, about ''people-management.'', about optimizing one's resources, and not just about creativity.

When it came to talking about his first attempt at direction: Abbas sprung a surprise by stating that ''JTYJN was not written for a film, but it was his answer to people who think I can't do ''commercial'' script-writing. I went through a writer's block just before coming up with this story''. In a moment of candour, Abbas admits that he believes it to be “a little unhealthy to direct your own script....when you write for someone else, you do leave something for the shot-taking''.

On the subject of Characterization, Abbas admits to being completely character-driven. ''Once you have created a character, then you are seeing that character as a person. Above all, the emphasis was on the characters being natural, ''as the audience is intelligent enough to see through any 'faking' To achieve this with an all new ensemble cast, in JTYJN, no efforts were spared, including having a confidence-boosting workshop, before the shoot of the film, with a thorough flat reading of the script, and where the cast lived the script''.