Trends in Indias Film Industry

Trends in Indias Film Industry 1.  Chapter One: Introduction In these modern times of instant digital communication, film has turn out to be one of the most vital way through various nations and cultures reveal their values and identities. Moving image technologies has turn out to be all-encompassing in our lives. They are huge business. Apart from that, a capability to recognize and apply them has become as important for the people of this present era as literacy was in the times of19th and 20th century (India PR Wire, April 4, 2007). The tempo, scale and consequences of this transformation are significant enough. The Indian Film industry has made a huge development ever since the Motion pictures first arrived in India in the year of 1896 when the Lumiere brothers revealed six silent short films in Bombay. The first feature film of India named- King Harishchandra (which was a silent movie) was released in the year of1913. In India the first ‘talkie’ movie that released was Alam Ara in the year 1931 (India PR Wire, April 4, 2007). 1.1  Film Production Houses In India A film production house is normally connected with the in-house production. It could categorize, make or telecast various segments of programs around news, films, multimedia, television shows, sports or ad films. India can be regarded as a home to a several well-known production houses from all the aforesaid stated areas. www.bestindiansites.com specifies top leading Indian websites on production houses of India, sports production house, ad film production house, film production house, sports production house, information on production house, list of production houses, television production house, multimedia production house, and a several other significant information’s (Subramaniam, A, 2003). We can in reality utter about various types of production houses such as Independent and corporate and just detail it by stating that Individual production houses are managed by just 1 or 2 producers and the infusion of capital investment for the production purpose is mainly generated by personal investment or by the means of loans taken from private investor. For corporate houses we could only cite that it is just like as any other corporate deal with the only differentiation that it produces films which is considered under the head of creative segment (essentially organised corporate structure of producing in creative industries – which is a new concept for Indian film industry) (Subramaniam, A, 2003) So when ‘Industry’ status was granted in 2000, Corporate started getting attracted towards the films industry realising the huge potential that was there to be exploited. When the corporate started entering to film industry with huge investment power they started incorporating studio culture of Hollywood by following vertical integration. Leaving behind the prevailing system of horizontal integration to the independent producers. The studio model production house started giving more importance to the content. It stressed on script development, introducing younger generation actors and directors, budget and time management, co productions and international distribution.  None of the new corporate production house had the background of film production when they entered the segment. However most of them were involved in activities related to the media (The Business Line, 2007). Barney says that the first to exploit the resources would gain competitive advantage over its rivals. This is exactly how the corporate production houses gained advantage over independent producers. The Industry had a lot of potential to grow with its wide acceptance globally. but the independent production houses had neglected this aspect, so when the corporate entered the industry they took complete advantage by using the unexploited resources of reach of the films and its growth possibilities steps (Barney, 1991). To exploit the resources of growth prospective, the studio model was developed under these parameters- To Produce and co produce the movies with strong content and story line. To complete the movie with in the budget and also in time. To sign contractual agreements with actors and directors. To focus on medium and large scale budget movies. To develop a huge distribution network nationally and internationally These parameters are not different from any other studio model in the world. Corporate production houses main aim was to apply these practices and standards in other markets, to the Indian market. The reason for doing this was to make maximum utilisation of the resources available. Already registered in the London Stock Exchange, several Indian film companies like as Eros, Ad labs, India Film Company, and utv – have generated immense capital from the various institutional investors who were keen to invest in Indian film companies. Moreover several Western film companies are looking forward for acquiring an ample equity share in these companies (Desai 2007). In this regard on 24 January 2005, Percept Picture Company associated with Michael Douglas’ production company Further Films and Sahara One to co-produce the $50-million Racing the Monsoon. Also on 1 September Sahara declared one more alliance, and this time with a Hollywood producer Donald Rosenfeld for Tree of Life starring Colin Farrell. These are two among a total of six Hollywood coproductions. (Kohli- Khandekar 2006.). On 20 October, 2005, Sony Pictures sign on Sanjay Leela Bhansali to co-produce Saawariya. The film was released globally in the year of 2007 with around 1,000 prints, a figure which was not heard of in the previous times for an Indian film. [The figure is on average 250.] Moreover this was the first time that a renowned Hollywood studio (that one of top six) had produced an Indian film. (Kohli-Khandekar 2006.) Indian admired cinema, remarkably Bollywood – the Mumbai (Bombay) film industry has witnessed several transformations given that it’s first beginnings. A few key modifications that took place at the turn of the century when Indian Popular Cinema gained the position of an industry.(1) After that the Indian film has developed in new directions. One such change was a more intense interplay between the global and the local which took place during the 1990s. Today, every single function and activity related to the Indian film business is becoming well defined and systematized, be it the retail infrastructure, financial aspect, marketing or distribution. Even films themselves are gradually falling into place. In just under five years, the industry has shed five decades of baggage and has become an organised business. This is a new Indian film industry (Kohli-Khandekar 2006). Film producers are interested in creating serious corporate structures, and Indian as well as foreign business is pouring money into the cinema. A wall of money is descending on Bollywood and there is a huge bubble building up (Desai 2007). Evaluating by the amount of movies produced by the Indian film industry, which is about more than one thousand movies per year, it is been regarded as the largest movie industry of the globe. The studio has reached international and also the profit earnings of the several Indian movies were greater in overseas locations than in India. Indian films have been witnessed in the leading ten lists of movies in the continents of UK and USA ((The Business Line, 2007)). 1.2  An overview of Indian film industry 1.2.1  Historical Section How Bollywood has evolved India is been regarded as the biggest movie industry of the world, if we talk about the number of movies produced in a year. It produces around more than 1000 films per year, which is greater than any of the film producing country. The Indian film industry is commonly regarded as BOLLYWOOD. The first Indian cinema was arrived in the year of 1913 with RAJA HARISHCHANDRA firstly coming into the picture and paving its way to the new period of silent cinema in India (Das Gupta, S., 2006). Since that time it has witnessed a vast series of evolution both in conditions of making and marketing of the Indian films.  We will largely talk about the evolution that took place from the year of 1980s to present time. India produces more films than any other country in the world, the government of India didn’t recognize filmmaking as an official industry until as recently as 2001. Before then, it was impossible for producers to get loans from banks or even insurance for their productions. As a result, producers often paid for their films out of their own pockets – a practice most American producers would consider absurdly risky – or obtained financing from less savory sources (Das Gupta, S., 2006): The unruly aspects of film production weren’t just limited to its financing. In some cases, it would take years to shoot a film. Overbooked film stars would show up egregiously late on set (or not at all) without penalty, scripts were often rewritten on set depending on which actors showed up, contracts were verbal and often violated, and produced films had no guarantees of finding distribution. All of these factors combined to make Bollywood film production an extremely risky endeavour (Das Gupta, S., 2006). 1980-1990 In India maximum number of films were produced by Independent (SingleSolo) producers or Family production houses, Big production companies like Rajashri productions, B.R Productions and R.K Productions were family owned production houses  and in some cases it can be traced back to several generations.(Taebue and Lorenzen-2007)   â€Å"In this period the Indian film industry seemed to make the least progress and in some case journey in the path of deprogress† (Ashish Tiwari). Most of the films were produced on a Formula which had protagonist the male lead character of the film who is called as the Hero and his female counter part as the Heroine who romanced with the Hero singing and dancing around the trees, this strategy gave birth to the masala films (Hindi for â€Å"spice mix†) â€Å"It was a compound made up of several elemental combinations that had drama comedy and romance along with song and dance sequences in symbol driven rather than plot driven† ( Lorenzen Taeube-2006). â€Å"The controversial author Salman Rushdie found a very precise and creative term that sums up the subject of Indian films perfectly, describing it as: ‘Epico-Mythico-Tragico-Comico-Super-Sexy-High- Masala-Art’ (Salman Rushdi, 1995 in â€Å"The Moor’s Last Sigh† quoted in Mishra,)à ¢â‚¬ (Adleline Pissang-2000).  Repetition of these kinds of stereotype films kept the audience away from theatres. Introduction of colour television and national coverage by Doordarshan in early 1980’s caused a drop in demand for Indian films. The middle class audience preferred to watch new Television soaps and old films on video cassettes (VHS) in their home rather than going to cinema halls. So the cinema halls became a run down and regarded suitable only for lower class men who could not afford a television preferred watching hard core violent films in theatres with lots of action and skimpily clad women dancing in the rain (Misara-2002). Competition from television made film production houses think innovatively, to hold their grip on the medium, so they started upgrading their films with lavish sets and so called â€Å"multi starrer† films which in turn increased the importance of star actors. So naturally the star actors wanted to cash in on their ‘star value’ and started charging exorbitant sums to act in a single film which in turn escalated the production cost of the film (Gopalan-2002). This was at the same time when the Indian music industry was on a high and could turn around the profit margins of even those films that failed at the box- office. The movie soundtrack became a key publicity stunt for the movies and the number of tracks and their popularity increased steadily. The pre- movie launch of music could determine the fate of a movie because if the music did well in the market then it created a huge wave amongst the public before the film got released. The sales of the audio cassettes used to bring in good share of revenue. The producers always hoped and worked towards making the music of their film a hit by casting good/popular music directors and famous playback singers for their films. Again, the producer had to invest a lot more on a popular music director but it was chance worth taking (Ganti-2004).   1990-2000 The introduction of cable T.V. was the greatest revolution of this era. It changed the outlook of film industry, though initially the survival of film industry was challenged with the entry of cable T.V. as it was an instant hit with the audience because it provided plenty of regional language channels like ZEE TV, SUN network and as well as few English channels STAR, HBO which aired films on their channels. But gradually the production houses understood the potential of the cable T.V. as it found a way for new source of income through selling its film rights at relatively higher prices for its telecast in television which is called as satellite rights (Pendakur-2003). Subsequently the film industry started depending on television as a medium of publicity by broadcasting songs and advertising campaigns of their films to pull the audiences to the theatres (David Hancock-1999). Music channels like MTV and V channel could not sustain by just transmitting private non film and international music albums so they had to take cover of film songs to increase their popularity in India (Bose-2006). It is believed that the criminal sources like underworld had a very strong hold on the Indian film industry; they controlled the whole production process of the films that they financed by dictating the terms in Bollywood like casting a superstar and selecting brilliant directors to work for their films. It is also believed that celebrities of the industry had close links with the mafia. Though usage of Black money (unaccounted money) in films was not an unfamiliar thing for ages but funding from underworld started in this period. It is estimated that 40% of film productions were financed by the underworld (Kripalani and Grover 2002; David Hancock-1998).   The early 1990’s can be called as the period of stagnation; the commercial cinema had ridiculous dialogues, baseless stories with no originality in them (Ashish Tiwari 2007). Few films in mid 1990’s were huge hits which broke most of the previous records. These films were big budget, romantic films (Dwyer and Patel) which upheld the family values in them. The two astronomical hits were HUM APKE HAI KAUN? (Who am I to You?) This released in 1994 and went onto run for two years in more than 50 theatres and DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE!! (The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride) got released in 1995 and was still running in its 13th year for 679th week as on 17th October 2008 at Marata Mandhir Cinema in Mumbai (www). Both these films were on similar lines, they were big budget romantic films with no actions sequence in them. In the former’s case the whole film was shot in beautiful gigantic sets going outdoors only for song sequence, which had 12 music tracks in it. In latter’s case maximum portion of the shoot took place in foreign locales. The audio of both these films were massive hits because they used the full potential of television by telecasting their songs and ad campaigns before the theatrical release. Both the production houses (Rajashri Productions and Yashraj Productions) of these films took great interest in refurbishing the theatres before the release of their films because they precisely knew their target audience were the upper middle class and family audiences who were content with television and they had to bring them back to the theatres. Once they succeeded â€Å"it marked the dominance of new middle class and uphold them to the pleasure of socially mixed audie nce both in India and overseas†. (Dwyer and Patel-2002) Rajashri and Yashraj Productions were the good old big production houses which started the trend for these kinds of films with big budget, but most of the small scale productions could not cope with this and had to stop producing films. Gradually number of films produced per year dropped. Source: David Hancock; Global Film production (Working Document) Venice Conference The biggest and greatest breakthrough in the Indian Cinema came in 1998. This is the year the Indian government recognised the potential of Indian cinema and granted the official status of ‘Industry’. Until then the public as well as private banks and other big financial institutions desisted from getting involved with the film production companies so the producers always had to depend on private money lenders for the capital for their films (Dwyer Patel, 2002). Now the production houses are getting their capital from public investments through semi public Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and other public banks (Lorenzen Taeube, 2006) 2000- Till date.. Indian Film Industry started in its way of revival of sorts, in 2001 all the prints of the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke which had a huge star cast was seized by the Central Bureau of Investigation suspecting it to be funded by the underworld and the producer of the film Bharath Shah was arrested for having close connections with the underworld. After this incident most of the producers feared to be identified with the under world. So the underworld gradually lost its hold in the Bollywood. Shooting at overseas location for a film is not new to Bollywood they have been doing this since 1960’s but currently there is an increasing trend of Indian film crew shooting at foreign locales. This is because of the huge global market for the Indian films. Many films are released simultaneously in U.S.A. and U.K.  and there are instances where the returns from overseas collections is higher than the home collections.  The script writers and Directors cannot neglect the overseas market any more while scripting and shooting for their film (Dudrah, R K, 2006). After the liberalisation of the industry in 1998 Direct Foreign Investments, Global Investors, Private Corporate started entering the film industry. Hollywood Majors like Universal, 21st Century Fox started investing in the Indian film industry through joint ventures with the Indian production houses. The corporate production houses are gaining importance in the film industry. Corporate houses like ADLABS, EROS, UTV, K.SERA SERA and many others have already made a mark in B.S.E. (Bombay Stock Exchange) and even in L.S.E. (London Stock Exchange). In the current scenario 20% of the total India films are produced by corporate giants (Anand times- 2006).   They have developed professional ways of organising business, mergers, outsourcing, distributing, use of new technology and marketing content.  The corporate houses have brought in the much needed professional flavour in to films which were missing in the production process earlier. The main advantage of the corporate house is it can produce more number of films simultaneously; it produces 5-6 films per year where as compared to the individual production houses cannot afford to produce more than 2-3 films in a year even after the deregulation. The greatest advantage of a corporate production house is it has a huge capital to invest on its films. Usually the risk is higher on a single movie basis, but the risk spreads out as they produce lot of films simultaneously.  They employ professionals in their firm as compared to the single producers of 80’s who used change their crew after every film. Few corporate houses even have their own multiplex cinema which helps in theatrical release as well as in developing a marketing strategy for their films. The corporate giants are investing hugely on the industry as a result of this the film Industry is already the 3rd largest industry in India (Dudrah-2006). The production houses are aiming at a homogenous or serial form of production as opposed to heterogeneous form of production they had earlier. The main purpose of switching to this form of production is to control all means of production and operate all aspects of film making from finance to production and distribution (Prasad-1998). The best example being Yashraj Productions. They have their own studios for recording, dubbing and editing and also have production equipments required for the shoot. With in the production  house they also have different sections like Yashraj Distribution for overseas and home market, Yashraj Music for all their audio sales and Yashraj Video for home video like DVD’s and VCD’s. It was one of the first production houses to hire management students from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad (IIMA) to market their films and also to set up their whole business process. They also stated their own website to market and project their media image  (Dywer Patel- 2002). Professionalization has brought new and better modes of planning. There are changed practices of production where there are professionals working constantly for the better utilization of funds, bringing production costs down and maximizing the profits  Film production in India is becoming an organised business. The overall film industry is taking on professional colours. 1.3  Size and growth opportunities The total size of Indian film industry was estimated at around Rs.56.5bn (inr40 = usd1) WHEN was this?, it is  anticipated to touch a huge figure of about Rs.153bn by the year of 2010 with taking into account 18 percent compound annual growth rate (cagr) as per the estimates of  ficci-Pricewaterhouse- Coopers in the year 2006. On the whole, the Indian film industry was anticipated to be value of about usd1.8bn in the year 2006. On the basis of a thorough top-down analysis considering the share of private consumption as a proportion of gdp, the marketshare for media and entertainment (me) expenditures, and film budgets within the me space it was accounted that the Indian film industry will be valued in between usd4.4 and 5.1bn (between inr176bn and inr204bn) by 2011 (cii-A.T. Kearney 2007). The movie industry has been getting more and more corporatized. Many film production, distribution and exhibition houses are listed on the stock markets and they have raised capital through public issue. Several theatres around the nation have been developed into multiplexes and plans to build up additional digital cinema halls are by now in lime light. This will certainly not only enhance the quality of prints and thereby providing viewing a extra pleasant experience for the audiences but will also decrease the piracy of prints (ficci-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006). These days piracy is a major issue for the Indian film industry. Not initiating nay major anti-piracy laws on the part of the government and an absence of educated officers that implements anti-piracy laws remains the vital issue. These are the main issue which is why the piracy business has not been able to control to a greater extent. This issue along with the lengthy legal and arbitration process is regarded as prevention to the fight against piracy. Apart from this the present Copyrights Act is also obsolete in conditions to technology enhancement and in addition, it does not deal with the requirements of the electronic media where the degree of piracy is amongst the maximum in present time. The Optical Disc Law draft established to deal with the requirement for regulating piracy at the manufacturing phase is still pending for the approval of the Indian ministry (ficci-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006). As against to few developed markets where the home market symbolizes greater than 40% of total movie revenues, the home market share in India is comparatively small (8%), though, this share is anticipated to rise to about 14% by the year of 2010. The important pushers that will facilitate this are the rising amount of reasonably priced DVD players and lesser prices of original DVDs so as to battle the issues of piracy (cii-A.T. Kearney 2007). The Indian entertainment and media industry enjoys a lot of aid in the present times – be it regulations that permit foreign investment, the momentum from the economy, digital lifestyle and spending styles of the consumers, and also several opportunities the development in technology have to provide. The industry only has to do is to realize its growth potential and opportunities. The government is required to play a greater dynamic task in solving out the policy-related obstruction for the purpose of growth. The industry is required to get rid of all obstructions, like as piracy in an intensive way along with the measures to produce high-quality global class end products. The entertainment and media industry has all ingredients which it generally takes to turn into the star of Indian economy (ficci-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006). There are two important movements that will basically transform the scene of the Indian film industry in the coming couple of years, namely digitization and a change in consumer preferences. Digitization will lead to consolidation and appearance of huge scale exhibition networks and, and apart from this, in the balance of power among producers-distributors and exhibitors. Changing customer preferences will lead to rising international acceptance of Indian films and in the upcoming of new media (cii-A.T. Kearney 2007). Growth opportunities in terms of Corporate production houses Indian film industry comprises of numerous regional clusters, and Bollywood is merely one of them. Bollywood is the cluster located in Mumbai, producing the biggest share of films (40%) mainly in Hindi (PWC FICCI, 2007). Bollywood is the oldest film cluster in India, dating back to early 20th century. Other film clusters in India like as one in Hyderabad, called â€Å"Tollywood† produces second biggest amount of films mainly in Telugu. While other clusters produce films chiefly in their local language. Growth opportunities in terms of Indian Film Industry 1.31 Current situation Currently the success ratios of films are very low at the box office. Only 10 to 20% of films break even or earn profits (Ganapathi, 2002; Pendakur, 2003; Ganti, 2004; Lorenzen Taeube, 2006) but most of the producers make money, recouping their investments through new auxiliary sources of revenue () like satellite rights music rights, home video rights(DVD),  video games, toys, computer wallpapers, ring tones, movie clips for mobile and selling ancillary rights. The new trend is product placement in films which brings in a lot of revenue and even helps in publicity of the film. In the period of 1998-2005 i.e after gaining the status of industry, the revenues in the films have grown by 360% this is including all revenues from advertising, selling of ancillary rights and music rights (Kholi- Khandekar, 2006; Lorenzen Taeube, 2006). The digital relay of films in cinema theatres is saving a lot of money as you don’t have to develop the physical print, which took a major share in a film budget.   The industry is losing more than 40% of its revenue through Piracy (David Hancock-1998). Copyright infringement of films is so wide spread in India it can be called as a ‘small scale industry’. Bootleg copies of DVD’s are available in the market on the same day the film officially releases in theatres or some times even before that. Pirated DVD’s and CD’s of Bollywood movies are available in most of the South Asian and South East Asian countries. The small cable television channels broadcast newly released films in their channels without paying any kind of compensation. Another problem is consumer copying which is very difficult to stop. To add on to this is Online Internet movies where consumers can download movies from websites like www.bhejafry.net, www.indiaonlinemovies.com and many more without actually paying anything. The technical skills of the Indian Film Industry has always been extraordinary but most of the time they had to settle for old and very poor quality of equipments.  But now due to huge market and Corporatisation they can afford to buy more sophisticated equipments. Digital facilities for Sound Recording, Dubbing, Editing is as good as anywhere in the world (Dwyer Patel, 2002). Bollywood has always been very enthusiastic about embracing new technologies in their films, and it is also been much quicker in doing this than the Hollywood (Currah, 2007). The Film Industry is using all the latest technologies like Arry 435 for the shoot, Avid and Mac products for post production work. Sync sound, D.I.(Digital Intermediate), Animations and special effects with Graphics are used extensively.  The Indian Film Industry can now even employ foreign technicians to work for them to improve the quality of the final product. In the blockbuster film KRRISH- (2006) the action sequence was choreographed by Tony Ching from Hong Kong and all the special effects for the film was done by Hollywood technicians (Minocha and Stonehouse- 2006). Globalisation has four facets, that is, movement of goods, capital, technology and people across borders. In terms of movement of goods (i. e., movies) Indian movie industry has a long history of presence in the global market. Awara was sent to the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries crazy in the year of1950s. Mehboob’s Aan had a French release after its premiere in London. Long before that Himansu Rai made visually stunning films in cooperation with the Germans in the early 1930s, like The Light of Asia and A Throw of Dice, and many more which were shown in Europe as Indian films with Indian stories. By then the Bombay film industry had been around for 35 years. The film industry is definitely as old as the cinema itself and surely older than Hollywood, which has its early development in the late 1900s (Desai 2007). The exports of the Indian movie have grown for approximately 60% in recent times. The USA and Canada are two main export locations witnessing for 30 percent than by the UK with 25% and Mauritius and Dubai with 10% each. Some other main markets comprise South Africa, Russia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia where there is abundant Indian diasporas present. Making a film for the diaspora market is a certainly a moneymaking project as against to making a film for the Indian domestic market (Desai 2007). With the global audience, there is outstanding recognition of Indian movie themes along with sew of the cross-over films made by global movie production players. The profit earnings of these movies can be match up to to few of the Hollywood box office hits. A number of Bollywood movies have gained greater than 50% of their total gross profit margin from global box office collection. However it is a welcome movement that requires to be carried on. One of the significant success factors for these cinemas is to recognize ideas from within the Indian subjects which are liked by the audience. An additional important success factor is to associate with a top global distributor; films produced by the person of Indian origin have had up to 2–3 times greater global earnings as compared to the national bestsellers (cii- A.T. Kearney 2007). Table 2 reveals a series of cross over films and the revenue earning generated by these films. India has stated its determined plans to double its share in the international film industry by the end of this year. This shows the great determination of the country to build itself as a cultural as well as economic powerhouse. There are many reasons why we must believe that. To begin with, the government, which aims on considering Bollywood to set up India as a ‘soft power’, considers the Indian film industry is competent enough to capture five percent of the international market this season. The share at the present time is two percent (Johnson 2007). Kishore Lulla, the chief executive of Eros International, a uk Trends in Indias Film Industry Trends in Indias Film Industry 1.  Chapter One: Introduction In these modern times of instant digital communication, film has turn out to be one of the most vital way through various nations and cultures reveal their values and identities. Moving image technologies has turn out to be all-encompassing in our lives. They are huge business. Apart from that, a capability to recognize and apply them has become as important for the people of this present era as literacy was in the times of19th and 20th century (India PR Wire, April 4, 2007). The tempo, scale and consequences of this transformation are significant enough. The Indian Film industry has made a huge development ever since the Motion pictures first arrived in India in the year of 1896 when the Lumiere brothers revealed six silent short films in Bombay. The first feature film of India named- King Harishchandra (which was a silent movie) was released in the year of1913. In India the first ‘talkie’ movie that released was Alam Ara in the year 1931 (India PR Wire, April 4, 2007). 1.1  Film Production Houses In India A film production house is normally connected with the in-house production. It could categorize, make or telecast various segments of programs around news, films, multimedia, television shows, sports or ad films. India can be regarded as a home to a several well-known production houses from all the aforesaid stated areas. www.bestindiansites.com specifies top leading Indian websites on production houses of India, sports production house, ad film production house, film production house, sports production house, information on production house, list of production houses, television production house, multimedia production house, and a several other significant information’s (Subramaniam, A, 2003). We can in reality utter about various types of production houses such as Independent and corporate and just detail it by stating that Individual production houses are managed by just 1 or 2 producers and the infusion of capital investment for the production purpose is mainly generated by personal investment or by the means of loans taken from private investor. For corporate houses we could only cite that it is just like as any other corporate deal with the only differentiation that it produces films which is considered under the head of creative segment (essentially organised corporate structure of producing in creative industries – which is a new concept for Indian film industry) (Subramaniam, A, 2003) So when ‘Industry’ status was granted in 2000, Corporate started getting attracted towards the films industry realising the huge potential that was there to be exploited. When the corporate started entering to film industry with huge investment power they started incorporating studio culture of Hollywood by following vertical integration. Leaving behind the prevailing system of horizontal integration to the independent producers. The studio model production house started giving more importance to the content. It stressed on script development, introducing younger generation actors and directors, budget and time management, co productions and international distribution.  None of the new corporate production house had the background of film production when they entered the segment. However most of them were involved in activities related to the media (The Business Line, 2007). Barney says that the first to exploit the resources would gain competitive advantage over its rivals. This is exactly how the corporate production houses gained advantage over independent producers. The Industry had a lot of potential to grow with its wide acceptance globally. but the independent production houses had neglected this aspect, so when the corporate entered the industry they took complete advantage by using the unexploited resources of reach of the films and its growth possibilities steps (Barney, 1991). To exploit the resources of growth prospective, the studio model was developed under these parameters- To Produce and co produce the movies with strong content and story line. To complete the movie with in the budget and also in time. To sign contractual agreements with actors and directors. To focus on medium and large scale budget movies. To develop a huge distribution network nationally and internationally These parameters are not different from any other studio model in the world. Corporate production houses main aim was to apply these practices and standards in other markets, to the Indian market. The reason for doing this was to make maximum utilisation of the resources available. Already registered in the London Stock Exchange, several Indian film companies like as Eros, Ad labs, India Film Company, and utv – have generated immense capital from the various institutional investors who were keen to invest in Indian film companies. Moreover several Western film companies are looking forward for acquiring an ample equity share in these companies (Desai 2007). In this regard on 24 January 2005, Percept Picture Company associated with Michael Douglas’ production company Further Films and Sahara One to co-produce the $50-million Racing the Monsoon. Also on 1 September Sahara declared one more alliance, and this time with a Hollywood producer Donald Rosenfeld for Tree of Life starring Colin Farrell. These are two among a total of six Hollywood coproductions. (Kohli- Khandekar 2006.). On 20 October, 2005, Sony Pictures sign on Sanjay Leela Bhansali to co-produce Saawariya. The film was released globally in the year of 2007 with around 1,000 prints, a figure which was not heard of in the previous times for an Indian film. [The figure is on average 250.] Moreover this was the first time that a renowned Hollywood studio (that one of top six) had produced an Indian film. (Kohli-Khandekar 2006.) Indian admired cinema, remarkably Bollywood – the Mumbai (Bombay) film industry has witnessed several transformations given that it’s first beginnings. A few key modifications that took place at the turn of the century when Indian Popular Cinema gained the position of an industry.(1) After that the Indian film has developed in new directions. One such change was a more intense interplay between the global and the local which took place during the 1990s. Today, every single function and activity related to the Indian film business is becoming well defined and systematized, be it the retail infrastructure, financial aspect, marketing or distribution. Even films themselves are gradually falling into place. In just under five years, the industry has shed five decades of baggage and has become an organised business. This is a new Indian film industry (Kohli-Khandekar 2006). Film producers are interested in creating serious corporate structures, and Indian as well as foreign business is pouring money into the cinema. A wall of money is descending on Bollywood and there is a huge bubble building up (Desai 2007). Evaluating by the amount of movies produced by the Indian film industry, which is about more than one thousand movies per year, it is been regarded as the largest movie industry of the globe. The studio has reached international and also the profit earnings of the several Indian movies were greater in overseas locations than in India. Indian films have been witnessed in the leading ten lists of movies in the continents of UK and USA ((The Business Line, 2007)). 1.2  An overview of Indian film industry 1.2.1  Historical Section How Bollywood has evolved India is been regarded as the biggest movie industry of the world, if we talk about the number of movies produced in a year. It produces around more than 1000 films per year, which is greater than any of the film producing country. The Indian film industry is commonly regarded as BOLLYWOOD. The first Indian cinema was arrived in the year of 1913 with RAJA HARISHCHANDRA firstly coming into the picture and paving its way to the new period of silent cinema in India (Das Gupta, S., 2006). Since that time it has witnessed a vast series of evolution both in conditions of making and marketing of the Indian films.  We will largely talk about the evolution that took place from the year of 1980s to present time. India produces more films than any other country in the world, the government of India didn’t recognize filmmaking as an official industry until as recently as 2001. Before then, it was impossible for producers to get loans from banks or even insurance for their productions. As a result, producers often paid for their films out of their own pockets – a practice most American producers would consider absurdly risky – or obtained financing from less savory sources (Das Gupta, S., 2006): The unruly aspects of film production weren’t just limited to its financing. In some cases, it would take years to shoot a film. Overbooked film stars would show up egregiously late on set (or not at all) without penalty, scripts were often rewritten on set depending on which actors showed up, contracts were verbal and often violated, and produced films had no guarantees of finding distribution. All of these factors combined to make Bollywood film production an extremely risky endeavour (Das Gupta, S., 2006). 1980-1990 In India maximum number of films were produced by Independent (SingleSolo) producers or Family production houses, Big production companies like Rajashri productions, B.R Productions and R.K Productions were family owned production houses  and in some cases it can be traced back to several generations.(Taebue and Lorenzen-2007)   â€Å"In this period the Indian film industry seemed to make the least progress and in some case journey in the path of deprogress† (Ashish Tiwari). Most of the films were produced on a Formula which had protagonist the male lead character of the film who is called as the Hero and his female counter part as the Heroine who romanced with the Hero singing and dancing around the trees, this strategy gave birth to the masala films (Hindi for â€Å"spice mix†) â€Å"It was a compound made up of several elemental combinations that had drama comedy and romance along with song and dance sequences in symbol driven rather than plot driven† ( Lorenzen Taeube-2006). â€Å"The controversial author Salman Rushdie found a very precise and creative term that sums up the subject of Indian films perfectly, describing it as: ‘Epico-Mythico-Tragico-Comico-Super-Sexy-High- Masala-Art’ (Salman Rushdi, 1995 in â€Å"The Moor’s Last Sigh† quoted in Mishra,)à ¢â‚¬ (Adleline Pissang-2000).  Repetition of these kinds of stereotype films kept the audience away from theatres. Introduction of colour television and national coverage by Doordarshan in early 1980’s caused a drop in demand for Indian films. The middle class audience preferred to watch new Television soaps and old films on video cassettes (VHS) in their home rather than going to cinema halls. So the cinema halls became a run down and regarded suitable only for lower class men who could not afford a television preferred watching hard core violent films in theatres with lots of action and skimpily clad women dancing in the rain (Misara-2002). Competition from television made film production houses think innovatively, to hold their grip on the medium, so they started upgrading their films with lavish sets and so called â€Å"multi starrer† films which in turn increased the importance of star actors. So naturally the star actors wanted to cash in on their ‘star value’ and started charging exorbitant sums to act in a single film which in turn escalated the production cost of the film (Gopalan-2002). This was at the same time when the Indian music industry was on a high and could turn around the profit margins of even those films that failed at the box- office. The movie soundtrack became a key publicity stunt for the movies and the number of tracks and their popularity increased steadily. The pre- movie launch of music could determine the fate of a movie because if the music did well in the market then it created a huge wave amongst the public before the film got released. The sales of the audio cassettes used to bring in good share of revenue. The producers always hoped and worked towards making the music of their film a hit by casting good/popular music directors and famous playback singers for their films. Again, the producer had to invest a lot more on a popular music director but it was chance worth taking (Ganti-2004).   1990-2000 The introduction of cable T.V. was the greatest revolution of this era. It changed the outlook of film industry, though initially the survival of film industry was challenged with the entry of cable T.V. as it was an instant hit with the audience because it provided plenty of regional language channels like ZEE TV, SUN network and as well as few English channels STAR, HBO which aired films on their channels. But gradually the production houses understood the potential of the cable T.V. as it found a way for new source of income through selling its film rights at relatively higher prices for its telecast in television which is called as satellite rights (Pendakur-2003). Subsequently the film industry started depending on television as a medium of publicity by broadcasting songs and advertising campaigns of their films to pull the audiences to the theatres (David Hancock-1999). Music channels like MTV and V channel could not sustain by just transmitting private non film and international music albums so they had to take cover of film songs to increase their popularity in India (Bose-2006). It is believed that the criminal sources like underworld had a very strong hold on the Indian film industry; they controlled the whole production process of the films that they financed by dictating the terms in Bollywood like casting a superstar and selecting brilliant directors to work for their films. It is also believed that celebrities of the industry had close links with the mafia. Though usage of Black money (unaccounted money) in films was not an unfamiliar thing for ages but funding from underworld started in this period. It is estimated that 40% of film productions were financed by the underworld (Kripalani and Grover 2002; David Hancock-1998).   The early 1990’s can be called as the period of stagnation; the commercial cinema had ridiculous dialogues, baseless stories with no originality in them (Ashish Tiwari 2007). Few films in mid 1990’s were huge hits which broke most of the previous records. These films were big budget, romantic films (Dwyer and Patel) which upheld the family values in them. The two astronomical hits were HUM APKE HAI KAUN? (Who am I to You?) This released in 1994 and went onto run for two years in more than 50 theatres and DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE!! (The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride) got released in 1995 and was still running in its 13th year for 679th week as on 17th October 2008 at Marata Mandhir Cinema in Mumbai (www). Both these films were on similar lines, they were big budget romantic films with no actions sequence in them. In the former’s case the whole film was shot in beautiful gigantic sets going outdoors only for song sequence, which had 12 music tracks in it. In latter’s case maximum portion of the shoot took place in foreign locales. The audio of both these films were massive hits because they used the full potential of television by telecasting their songs and ad campaigns before the theatrical release. Both the production houses (Rajashri Productions and Yashraj Productions) of these films took great interest in refurbishing the theatres before the release of their films because they precisely knew their target audience were the upper middle class and family audiences who were content with television and they had to bring them back to the theatres. Once they succeeded â€Å"it marked the dominance of new middle class and uphold them to the pleasure of socially mixed audie nce both in India and overseas†. (Dwyer and Patel-2002) Rajashri and Yashraj Productions were the good old big production houses which started the trend for these kinds of films with big budget, but most of the small scale productions could not cope with this and had to stop producing films. Gradually number of films produced per year dropped. Source: David Hancock; Global Film production (Working Document) Venice Conference The biggest and greatest breakthrough in the Indian Cinema came in 1998. This is the year the Indian government recognised the potential of Indian cinema and granted the official status of ‘Industry’. Until then the public as well as private banks and other big financial institutions desisted from getting involved with the film production companies so the producers always had to depend on private money lenders for the capital for their films (Dwyer Patel, 2002). Now the production houses are getting their capital from public investments through semi public Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and other public banks (Lorenzen Taeube, 2006) 2000- Till date.. Indian Film Industry started in its way of revival of sorts, in 2001 all the prints of the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke which had a huge star cast was seized by the Central Bureau of Investigation suspecting it to be funded by the underworld and the producer of the film Bharath Shah was arrested for having close connections with the underworld. After this incident most of the producers feared to be identified with the under world. So the underworld gradually lost its hold in the Bollywood. Shooting at overseas location for a film is not new to Bollywood they have been doing this since 1960’s but currently there is an increasing trend of Indian film crew shooting at foreign locales. This is because of the huge global market for the Indian films. Many films are released simultaneously in U.S.A. and U.K.  and there are instances where the returns from overseas collections is higher than the home collections.  The script writers and Directors cannot neglect the overseas market any more while scripting and shooting for their film (Dudrah, R K, 2006). After the liberalisation of the industry in 1998 Direct Foreign Investments, Global Investors, Private Corporate started entering the film industry. Hollywood Majors like Universal, 21st Century Fox started investing in the Indian film industry through joint ventures with the Indian production houses. The corporate production houses are gaining importance in the film industry. Corporate houses like ADLABS, EROS, UTV, K.SERA SERA and many others have already made a mark in B.S.E. (Bombay Stock Exchange) and even in L.S.E. (London Stock Exchange). In the current scenario 20% of the total India films are produced by corporate giants (Anand times- 2006).   They have developed professional ways of organising business, mergers, outsourcing, distributing, use of new technology and marketing content.  The corporate houses have brought in the much needed professional flavour in to films which were missing in the production process earlier. The main advantage of the corporate house is it can produce more number of films simultaneously; it produces 5-6 films per year where as compared to the individual production houses cannot afford to produce more than 2-3 films in a year even after the deregulation. The greatest advantage of a corporate production house is it has a huge capital to invest on its films. Usually the risk is higher on a single movie basis, but the risk spreads out as they produce lot of films simultaneously.  They employ professionals in their firm as compared to the single producers of 80’s who used change their crew after every film. Few corporate houses even have their own multiplex cinema which helps in theatrical release as well as in developing a marketing strategy for their films. The corporate giants are investing hugely on the industry as a result of this the film Industry is already the 3rd largest industry in India (Dudrah-2006). The production houses are aiming at a homogenous or serial form of production as opposed to heterogeneous form of production they had earlier. The main purpose of switching to this form of production is to control all means of production and operate all aspects of film making from finance to production and distribution (Prasad-1998). The best example being Yashraj Productions. They have their own studios for recording, dubbing and editing and also have production equipments required for the shoot. With in the production  house they also have different sections like Yashraj Distribution for overseas and home market, Yashraj Music for all their audio sales and Yashraj Video for home video like DVD’s and VCD’s. It was one of the first production houses to hire management students from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad (IIMA) to market their films and also to set up their whole business process. They also stated their own website to market and project their media image  (Dywer Patel- 2002). Professionalization has brought new and better modes of planning. There are changed practices of production where there are professionals working constantly for the better utilization of funds, bringing production costs down and maximizing the profits  Film production in India is becoming an organised business. The overall film industry is taking on professional colours. 1.3  Size and growth opportunities The total size of Indian film industry was estimated at around Rs.56.5bn (inr40 = usd1) WHEN was this?, it is  anticipated to touch a huge figure of about Rs.153bn by the year of 2010 with taking into account 18 percent compound annual growth rate (cagr) as per the estimates of  ficci-Pricewaterhouse- Coopers in the year 2006. On the whole, the Indian film industry was anticipated to be value of about usd1.8bn in the year 2006. On the basis of a thorough top-down analysis considering the share of private consumption as a proportion of gdp, the marketshare for media and entertainment (me) expenditures, and film budgets within the me space it was accounted that the Indian film industry will be valued in between usd4.4 and 5.1bn (between inr176bn and inr204bn) by 2011 (cii-A.T. Kearney 2007). The movie industry has been getting more and more corporatized. Many film production, distribution and exhibition houses are listed on the stock markets and they have raised capital through public issue. Several theatres around the nation have been developed into multiplexes and plans to build up additional digital cinema halls are by now in lime light. This will certainly not only enhance the quality of prints and thereby providing viewing a extra pleasant experience for the audiences but will also decrease the piracy of prints (ficci-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006). These days piracy is a major issue for the Indian film industry. Not initiating nay major anti-piracy laws on the part of the government and an absence of educated officers that implements anti-piracy laws remains the vital issue. These are the main issue which is why the piracy business has not been able to control to a greater extent. This issue along with the lengthy legal and arbitration process is regarded as prevention to the fight against piracy. Apart from this the present Copyrights Act is also obsolete in conditions to technology enhancement and in addition, it does not deal with the requirements of the electronic media where the degree of piracy is amongst the maximum in present time. The Optical Disc Law draft established to deal with the requirement for regulating piracy at the manufacturing phase is still pending for the approval of the Indian ministry (ficci-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006). As against to few developed markets where the home market symbolizes greater than 40% of total movie revenues, the home market share in India is comparatively small (8%), though, this share is anticipated to rise to about 14% by the year of 2010. The important pushers that will facilitate this are the rising amount of reasonably priced DVD players and lesser prices of original DVDs so as to battle the issues of piracy (cii-A.T. Kearney 2007). The Indian entertainment and media industry enjoys a lot of aid in the present times – be it regulations that permit foreign investment, the momentum from the economy, digital lifestyle and spending styles of the consumers, and also several opportunities the development in technology have to provide. The industry only has to do is to realize its growth potential and opportunities. The government is required to play a greater dynamic task in solving out the policy-related obstruction for the purpose of growth. The industry is required to get rid of all obstructions, like as piracy in an intensive way along with the measures to produce high-quality global class end products. The entertainment and media industry has all ingredients which it generally takes to turn into the star of Indian economy (ficci-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2006). There are two important movements that will basically transform the scene of the Indian film industry in the coming couple of years, namely digitization and a change in consumer preferences. Digitization will lead to consolidation and appearance of huge scale exhibition networks and, and apart from this, in the balance of power among producers-distributors and exhibitors. Changing customer preferences will lead to rising international acceptance of Indian films and in the upcoming of new media (cii-A.T. Kearney 2007). Growth opportunities in terms of Corporate production houses Indian film industry comprises of numerous regional clusters, and Bollywood is merely one of them. Bollywood is the cluster located in Mumbai, producing the biggest share of films (40%) mainly in Hindi (PWC FICCI, 2007). Bollywood is the oldest film cluster in India, dating back to early 20th century. Other film clusters in India like as one in Hyderabad, called â€Å"Tollywood† produces second biggest amount of films mainly in Telugu. While other clusters produce films chiefly in their local language. Growth opportunities in terms of Indian Film Industry 1.31 Current situation Currently the success ratios of films are very low at the box office. Only 10 to 20% of films break even or earn profits (Ganapathi, 2002; Pendakur, 2003; Ganti, 2004; Lorenzen Taeube, 2006) but most of the producers make money, recouping their investments through new auxiliary sources of revenue () like satellite rights music rights, home video rights(DVD),  video games, toys, computer wallpapers, ring tones, movie clips for mobile and selling ancillary rights. The new trend is product placement in films which brings in a lot of revenue and even helps in publicity of the film. In the period of 1998-2005 i.e after gaining the status of industry, the revenues in the films have grown by 360% this is including all revenues from advertising, selling of ancillary rights and music rights (Kholi- Khandekar, 2006; Lorenzen Taeube, 2006). The digital relay of films in cinema theatres is saving a lot of money as you don’t have to develop the physical print, which took a major share in a film budget.   The industry is losing more than 40% of its revenue through Piracy (David Hancock-1998). Copyright infringement of films is so wide spread in India it can be called as a ‘small scale industry’. Bootleg copies of DVD’s are available in the market on the same day the film officially releases in theatres or some times even before that. Pirated DVD’s and CD’s of Bollywood movies are available in most of the South Asian and South East Asian countries. The small cable television channels broadcast newly released films in their channels without paying any kind of compensation. Another problem is consumer copying which is very difficult to stop. To add on to this is Online Internet movies where consumers can download movies from websites like www.bhejafry.net, www.indiaonlinemovies.com and many more without actually paying anything. The technical skills of the Indian Film Industry has always been extraordinary but most of the time they had to settle for old and very poor quality of equipments.  But now due to huge market and Corporatisation they can afford to buy more sophisticated equipments. Digital facilities for Sound Recording, Dubbing, Editing is as good as anywhere in the world (Dwyer Patel, 2002). Bollywood has always been very enthusiastic about embracing new technologies in their films, and it is also been much quicker in doing this than the Hollywood (Currah, 2007). The Film Industry is using all the latest technologies like Arry 435 for the shoot, Avid and Mac products for post production work. Sync sound, D.I.(Digital Intermediate), Animations and special effects with Graphics are used extensively.  The Indian Film Industry can now even employ foreign technicians to work for them to improve the quality of the final product. In the blockbuster film KRRISH- (2006) the action sequence was choreographed by Tony Ching from Hong Kong and all the special effects for the film was done by Hollywood technicians (Minocha and Stonehouse- 2006). Globalisation has four facets, that is, movement of goods, capital, technology and people across borders. In terms of movement of goods (i. e., movies) Indian movie industry has a long history of presence in the global market. Awara was sent to the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries crazy in the year of1950s. Mehboob’s Aan had a French release after its premiere in London. Long before that Himansu Rai made visually stunning films in cooperation with the Germans in the early 1930s, like The Light of Asia and A Throw of Dice, and many more which were shown in Europe as Indian films with Indian stories. By then the Bombay film industry had been around for 35 years. The film industry is definitely as old as the cinema itself and surely older than Hollywood, which has its early development in the late 1900s (Desai 2007). The exports of the Indian movie have grown for approximately 60% in recent times. The USA and Canada are two main export locations witnessing for 30 percent than by the UK with 25% and Mauritius and Dubai with 10% each. Some other main markets comprise South Africa, Russia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia where there is abundant Indian diasporas present. Making a film for the diaspora market is a certainly a moneymaking project as against to making a film for the Indian domestic market (Desai 2007). With the global audience, there is outstanding recognition of Indian movie themes along with sew of the cross-over films made by global movie production players. The profit earnings of these movies can be match up to to few of the Hollywood box office hits. A number of Bollywood movies have gained greater than 50% of their total gross profit margin from global box office collection. However it is a welcome movement that requires to be carried on. One of the significant success factors for these cinemas is to recognize ideas from within the Indian subjects which are liked by the audience. An additional important success factor is to associate with a top global distributor; films produced by the person of Indian origin have had up to 2–3 times greater global earnings as compared to the national bestsellers (cii- A.T. Kearney 2007). Table 2 reveals a series of cross over films and the revenue earning generated by these films. India has stated its determined plans to double its share in the international film industry by the end of this year. This shows the great determination of the country to build itself as a cultural as well as economic powerhouse. There are many reasons why we must believe that. To begin with, the government, which aims on considering Bollywood to set up India as a ‘soft power’, considers the Indian film industry is competent enough to capture five percent of the international market this season. The share at the present time is two percent (Johnson 2007). Kishore Lulla, the chief executive of Eros International, a uk

Unplugged: Mobile Phone and Portable Music Player

Unplugged The world is full of technology; Almost everywhere you look you will see some form of technology, from a cellphone that can speak to you, to a computer that can run anything your heart desires. As Martin Lindstorm writes in his article â€Å"Friends who have accidentally left home without their iPhones tell me they feel stressed-out, cut off and somehow un-whole. † (Lindstorm). People tend to be overly attached to their phones, as if they were people capable of loving them back.I see how this could be possible because your phone does connect you to the people that you care about and when you can’t contact them life is a little bit more difficult. The people of this country seem to always need the fastest and newest piece of technology, often because it is viewed as a part of one’s social status. For this assignment I was tasked with going a full 24 hours without using technology. Since, society is so connected, I found this project to be very interestin g, and relevant to the present day.This seemed like it would be an easy task that would not take much effort or thought; however a simple 24 hours unplugged from technology subsequently unplugged me from the world. I have never seen myself as someone who needs their devices so much; however we often learn new things about ourselves. Once I began tracking my usage I noticed for the first time how much I use technology. I thought that I only used my phone and other technology when the situation required it as well as a little bit of recreational use. In my usage log I recorded mostly a few texts, my laptop usage and the movie I watched on my Xbox.I did more in my trial period then my log shows. I texted more then it displays; I really texted people once or twice to set up plans with them to hang out later in the day. I also did not record every time I checked my phone for the time; I forgot at the start and then realized that my phone is really just a rectangular clock. I realized tha t I use my phone mostly just to see what time it is because I always have it on me so it is always the first place I look for the time, instead of running around trying to find a clock.It opened my eyes to my frequent usage and excellently foreshadows my experiences the next week. Getting away from technology is a difficult task today. I found my hardest task was not stopping myself from using technology but instead distracting myself from those who were using it. In an article for Time magazine, Dalton Conley writes, â€Å"children ages 8 to 18 spend 7 hours and 38 min. a day using entertainment media† (Conley). People are using their technology all the time, making difficult to avoid.For example, my roommate loves his music and it was impossible for me to be in my room without listening to it so in this aspect I failed to go the full 24 hours. Still, I made it through most of the day without technology but I was left thinking that the only true way to be able to successfull y complete this assignment is to stop everyone from using technology. Today everyone has some kind of a phone, portable music player or handheld game. This is why this assignment is so difficult, because even though you are not allowed to use technology everyone else is.Every junction yields a reminder that the use of technology is restricted; a reminder of what you cannot do which then provokes you to break the rules. My experience was not difficult because of my deprivation but because everyone else still could. We rely so much on technology and to be the only one not using it makes the world just seem to pass by. Time seems to slow down, and the more I think about it, is not because I couldn’t use technology to pass the time but because everyone else still was. My 24 hours unplugged were spent doing almost nothing.I decided to go from 6pm on Friday to 6pm on Saturday, not that smartest idea. I started hanging out with my friends about 15 minutes before 6, which was good so that I could hang out with them without having to use technology to make plans. But the next morning was a different story. I didn’t plan for the morning because I wasn’t thinking of the fact that I wouldn’t be able to use technology. So I wound up just sleeping until about noon and then didn’t really do much for the rest of the time. I tried to study some chemistry but to no avail to do to the fact that I needed to look something up but I couldn’t.Experiences can change us. We can look at the world completely differently because of one small adjustment to our routine. This assignment has changed my perception of myself. I started out thinking that I didn’t really use technology much and that it didn’t completely run my life and that I could live without it. However; now that I have grown used to my phone in my pocket and my laptop on my desk, they are comfortable parts of my life and are hard to do without. I don’t know if I could go longer than 24 hours but I think I would be willing to try this again with a different view and a etter plan of attack; a view that technology is important in my life and a better understanding of how I use it. Admittedly I had a bit of trouble finishing this assignment but I think it is because I could not escape technology, it was everywhere I turned. In an article by Tamar Lewin, the author noted â€Å"The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Lewin). Most of society is wrapped around their technology unable of putting it down. I now acknowledge that I need technology to stay connected to the world and up to date with my homework. It is a vital part of my life that previously I did not think was essential to my day to day life. I saw technology as a toy to be enjoyed but now I see it as a very important tool to accomplish the task at hand.

How Important is Discipline in Society? Essay

Among those who work in difficult or dangerous jobs, for example in coal mines, there is often a discipline that comes not from being subject to the will of any person, however rational and well-intentioned, but from the work itself. If it is to be done successfully and with the minimum danger and discomfort to all those engaged in it, certain procedures must be followed and safeguards observed. Since the workers can see that the nature of the work demands this, there is correspondingly less need for discipline to be imposed on them by some other agency. This is an ideal situation, as far as discipline is concerned: where the discipline is inherent in the work or activity, and where rules and procedures are followed because they are perceived as appropriate if the work is to be done. In the same kind of way it does happen, and fortunately not all that rarely, that a society appears collectively to embrace the idea that behaving within the legal confines is in the public’s interest, and that if they are to be law-abiding, then various routines, such as remaining content with earning one’s own keep and not committing fraud, have to be kept to. How can â€Å"discipline† be defined? Some would reserve the word for the following of rules because the rules are seen appropriate to the task in hand, and would apply the adjective â€Å"disciplined† to the abovementioned society but not to another one which has been brought to order by some external force such as the government’s threats of punishment. Others take a more holistic view of discipline in which it is perfectly proper to speak of one person or group of persons being â€Å"disciplined† by another’s imposition of authority. It would be pointless to stipulate that the word should be used in one way or another. However, I wish to stress that whatever words we use, there are clearly differences among the following three cases: one, where we follow rules willingly because we perceive them as right or appropriate; two, where we follow them under manipulative coercion, such as when we are persuaded that there is no alternative to the rules; and three, where we follow them under what may be called punitive coercion, being threatened with punishment or in general some unpleasant consequences if we do not. In a narrow view of things, many of mankind’s achievements in education,  economics, culture, athletics and science can be attributed to the persistence of disciplined, and often self-motivated, individuals. Sterling examples would include Archimedes, the great mathematician, who before being killed by a Roman soldier was drawing symbols in sand; Marie Curie who dedicated her widowed years in continuing research in radioactivity and eventually died of a radiation-triggered illness; and Siddhartha Gautama who exercised strict discipline over himself to mediate under the pipal tree and eventually achieved enlightenment. Even in Singapore, we see a most disciplined mountaineer in Mr. Khoo Swee Chiow who genuinely believes in his cause. However, discipline in the populace would assume greater significance if we consider its polar opposite: civil disobedience, or the taking of a token action in defiance of the law for the purpose of changing the law. Those who act in a civilly disobedient manner have no respect for law (whereas discipline is the manifestation of a respect for law). It is impossible to have a law that authorises individuals to violate it. Respect for law is essential for any system to function. An effective system of law is possible only when appeals cannot be made to principles outside the legal system. Civil disobedients determine for themselves what laws to obey and what laws to violate. Without law, there will only be chaos as each individual and group decides unilaterally what is right. The victims in such a lawless society will probably be many of the very same people who argue so adamantly for the right of civil disobedience, namely, the advocates of civil rights, social justice, and peace. If one group can decide for itself which laws to obey, so too will other groups. A system of law protects all groups in society. Without it, anarchy prevails, discussion ceases and violence begins. Therefore, discipline is a form of civilly responsible behaviour which helps maintain social order and contributes to the preservation, if not advancement, of collective interests of society at large. Having said that, a society whose members are too self-disciplined to ever become civilly disobedient is likely to be a stagnant one. On the other hand, civil disobedience may be good in the sense that a tolerance of it strengthens democracy. For a system to be democratic, it must have broad  support among diverse elements of society. The processes of a representative democracy (with a system of representative government based on free elections and a system of limitations on state activity) work slowly, and often groups become disenchanted with the slow responsiveness of government. Groups subjected to discrimination or injustice cannot be expected to rely exclusively on constitutional processes, while remedies take years to be instituted. Faced with the problems deeply felt by a group, its leaders must have an alternative to dissent or resistance. In the 1960s, for example, black people in America felt that the processes of change, particularly social and economic change, were moving too slowly to produce tangible benefits. Most of them rejected extremist solutions as unsuitable for democracy but saw in civil disobedience a remedy that would allow them to accept the legitimacy of the system. Hence Martin Luther King’s policy of direct action – the taking of non-violent measures like boycotts and sit-ins – which was based on the necessity of violating unjust laws. Here, acts of civil disobedience were justified because racial segregation by law is morally reprehensible. Another of the twentieth century’s great proponents of civil disobedience was Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Indian leader. His policy of satyagraha (literally â€Å"firmness in the truth†) was often equated with passive resistance. He urged his partisans to take peaceful acts, such as marches and boycotts to achieve the independence of India from British colonial rule. Gandhi became famous for his hunger strikes and for other acts of non-violence. One of his tactics was to have his followers lie down on railroad tracks, thus preventing trains from moving. By taking such peaceful acts of civil disobedience, Gandhi contributed to the movement – both in India and in Great Britain – for the independence of his country. Although not sanctified by law, civil disobedients can strengthen democratic institutions because they channel their energies in directions that a broader segment would ultimately accept – the abolition of slavery and segregation laws, the expression of civil rights, the establishment of nation independence, and the promotion of peace. They bring about positive  social changes. Returning to the three cases I highlighted in the second paragraph, it seems clear enough that the first case, whether or not we call it â€Å"discipline†, is what any government would prefer to find in its people. After all, it guarantees smooth implementation of even the most unpopular laws and in extreme cases, enables social engineering to be carried out. The question is what we are to do when this ideal breaks down or has no chance to develop. What course of action can governments take to bring about the order necessary for the smooth running of society, and indeed for civilised relationsh ips in general, to take place? More than often, governments ensure discipline in the people by instituting a legal system. Undoubtedly, a legal system is a specialised system of rules, distinct from moral rules, which at the least provides a framework in which individual behaviour can be in some sense regulated and an element in certainty guaranteed, and which at the very most may provide a comprehensive framework of regulations covering nearly all aspects of the individual’s life. To discuss the importance of discipline, or rather disciplinary action, in society, we would need to validate the existence of legal systems. It is true that some political philosophers have toyed with the idea of the possibility of social order without law: indeed, the first major work on this subject, Plato’s Republic, describes a lawless utopia in which the free play of the intelligence of the philosopher-kings is allowed to proceed untrammelled by legal restraints. Also, Karl Marx’s future classless society would be free from the restraints of civil and criminal law because those very factors that give rise to the need for law – the institution of money, the social division of labour and the system of private property – would have been removed. What unites all the differing â€Å"lawless† utopias is the requirement that these desirable states of affairs can only be brought about by a fundamental change in human nature. Marx, for instance, stresses that the abolition of the social division of labour associated with the bourgeois mode of production would entail a change in human nature. Yet the most elementary of human nature would make these interpretations fantastically optimistic because it seems to indicate the necessity for some rules, many of which are bound to be backed by organised sanctions (these will come to  be known as â€Å"laws†). Other political theorists, perhaps with a less elevated view of human potential, have argued that individuals have found the best form of protection in the existence of general rules of conduct binding on all. It is ironic that in his Laws, a much later work, Plato describes a society under the rule of law. Many commentators have understood this striking change in viewpoint as a capitulation to hard facts. If so, the facts may be no more compelling than that a wise ruler can be effective only through the promulgation of general regulations. No ruler of a large society could make every critical decision and transmit it rapidly through the populace. The best one can do is to define general limits within which individual citizens make their own decisions. Likewise, in practice, Communist regimes have maintained some sort of court system. Indeed, as the dream of a stateless, coercionless society faded, the notion of â€Å"legality† crept back into Soviet jurisprudence. Constitution law was revived and made consistent with socialism; and even some Western legal concepts and practices which would previously have been denounced as bourgeois reappeared in the later development of the Soviet legal system. Thus there was a legal order in the Soviet system. From these illustrations, it becomes more difficult to conceive of a society in which the people are not disciplined by laws. A system of law provides three qualities for social life: stability, uniformity and cooperation. The type of social stability that law provides is reliability of expectation. When established laws exist, citizens know what they can expect from their fellow citizens and government officials. Criminal law is a system of rules that provides means for the apprehension of individuals who break the law and that circumscribe the procedures that the government must follow in arrest and seizure. Civil law defines the procedures required for legal status with respect to property, contracts, marriages and many other relations among individuals and institutions. To a great extent, the more persuasive is law throughout a society, and the more are social relations regulated by it, the more stable is the society and the more reliable are expectations of members of the society as to how others will act if they respect the law. The greatest virtue of law is that it  achieves an explicitness frequently absent from other regions of social life, say custom, preventing arbitrariness and caprice and making clear what is demanded of individuals. Next, the fundamental and persuasive feature of law is its promulgation of a general rule binding equally on everyone who fits the conditions prescribed. The principle that everyone is equal before the law is inherent in all laws, not just in a democracy. Uniformity is important for stability, cooperation and fairness. It expresses the heart of the principle of equality before the law. A stable society requires uniform procedures for regulating activities and for rectifying imbalances. Citizens must be informed by formal legislation that activities are prescribed and proscribed. Where cooperation throughout large groups and regions is pursued, stable and reliable expectations are required. Vehicle drivers cooperate at road junctions through the laws that regulate left of way. Finally, the urge towards fairness shared by everyone, even those who reject some laws, requires implementation in laws if it is to be effective. Thirdly, a society can be beneficial to its members only where it achieves cooperation among them. If all activities were wholly individual within a society, the society would exact the usual price for social life from its members without compensating benefits. Law provides a necessary organisational and structural force in cooperative ventures. Exchange and possession of property could not be as smooth as they are in many countries without rules regulating the flow of money, procedures for the exchange of property and so forth. The most obvious characteristic of laws is that they are enforced, involving the police, courts of laws, punishments and penal institutions. I accept that the general justifying aim punishment is to secure greater obedience to laws and rules by deterring offenders, both potential repeat offenders and those who so far have not offended but might if not deterred. If this seems too obvious a statement to be worth making, I do so at this point because different opinions have been offered, such as that the general purpose of punishment is to reform offenders, or to visit retribution on them or to  reveal the moral order. Judicial punishment is incurred for an offence against laws or rules, which can be inspected in statute books. The connection is that when a person can know in advance, because rules have been published, what he is liable to be punished for, it is possible for him to exercise the choice and live in the security that are supposed to be the advantages of order being maintained through punishment rather than manipulation or sophisticated bullying. Thus punishment is supposed to have the merit of respecting the individual’s responsibility, of giving him the choice of whether to offend and to pay the price or observe the rule and preserve his freedom, so conferring the benefit that he is in charge, in this respect at least, of his own life and destiny. To insist that it is precisely where matters of importance are concerned that people must be given significant responsibility may seem strange in the context of punishment, for what we want to do is to prevent crimes and offences, not leave people with the choice of whether to commit them or not. Punishments are not simply a scheme of fines and restrictions designed to put a price on certain forms of conducts; it would be far better if the acts proscribed by penal statutes were never done. The point of punishment is that while it aims to prevent offences, it does this in a way that leaves room for other principles and goods that we value, which a more simple-minded, draconian system of preventing offences would not. More is at stake than the maintenance of laws at their most efficacious level: if that were all we wanted, we would behave very differently. We might, for example, take measures to isolate or even exterminate those sections or age groups of the population statistically most likely to commit crimes and would no doubt institute curfews. Yet we have reservations about measures such as these because as well as freedom from crimes, we value other things like freedom of speech, of movement and association. In this light, punishment as a means of discipline is important in society. At the same time, this importance can be diminished in the view of the adverse effects of law and punishment. The value of law is so great and the reverence for law becomes so overpowering that it may become self-stultifying and destructive. Laws can make a society become too stable  and inflexible, incapable of adapting to new conditions. The laws of a society may represent social relations long out of date, promoting oppression and invasion of privacy. Law may impose too great a uniformity upon society, stifling creativity, originality, human variation and cultural heterogeneity. When the faults of law intrude, people become desperate. When injustices prevail within the ruling system of injustice, when society becomes too uniform, inflexible and oppressive, law can be viewed as an intractable evil. When the prevailing legal system is held up as worthy because it is the law, no matter how oppressive and unjust, people lose their respect for law without knowing any alternative. The most pernicious danger is that respect for law may be imposed and not earned, and may be assumed even when the law is unjust. Then we have the hidden oppression of Kafka’s â€Å"The Trial†, in which a man suffers under a system of Law that accuses and trials him but never explains why. That system should not merit such respect and must instead be condemned. In conclusion, I view discipline exercised by and over the populace as important in society; however, it should co-exist with an active civil voice. Can discipline be maintained by means other than law and punishment? Liberal-rationalists distinguish rule-governed behaviour from habitual behaviour on the premise that the former involves â€Å"internalisation†. A rule is internalised when it is understood by the participants in a social practice as indicating a right and wrong way of doing things. Unlike the carefully trained animal in the zoo who follows the keeper’s instructions automatically, individuals who are guided by rules regard them as expressing meaningful standards of behaviour. Furthermore, rules entail the idea of choice for, unlike well-trained animals, humans may disobey rules. Sanctions are needed to cope with the minority of rule-breakers but this does not mean that sanctions can replace internalisation as the guarantor of regularised behaviour. This concept of â€Å"internalisation† is reminiscent of Confucius’ teachings: â€Å"Guide them by the edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the  common people will stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves.†

Usama bin Laden Biography Essays - 1450 Words

Usama bin Laden and His Selection Of Terrorism Usama bin Laden, born in 1957, comes from a wealthy Saudi Arabian family that owns a multinational construction business. He used his inherited wealth to finance Afghan forces fighting the Soviet Unions occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980’s. After the 1991 Gulf War, he was distressed that Saudi Arabia allowed U.S. forces to remain in the Arabian Peninsula. To advance his agenda of expelling the U.S. from the Islamic world, he worked with other anti-Western fundamentalists to organize a secretive, highly compartmentalized terrorist network, known as al-Qaida. It is through his upbringing, education, culture, and wars in Islamic countries, that Usama bin Laden has sought to purge the†¦show more content†¦Whereas Usama’s father may have been a strict disciplinarian, he was also a successful businessman. Usama bin Laden’s father founded the Bin Laden Group construction company. The Bin Laden Group became heavily involved in Saudi government contracts that facilitated the Bin Laden’s financial wealth. The construction company is known for building mosques in Mecca and Medina in addition to highways and palaces.2 Usama also worked in his fathers business from where he eventually amassed a fortune to finance mujahideen in Afghanistan. While Usama bin Laden was attending King Abdul-Aziz University, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. He had maintained contact with some of the pilgrims he met during Hajj that stayed with his family, and with his two teachers that mentored him while attending the university. These are the individuals that influenced him to journey to Afghanistan within the first few weeks of the invasion. â€Å"During the early stages of the mujahideen (Holy Warrior) resistance, bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet with scholars and leaders who had been guests at his family’s house. He began lobbying for the mujahideen and raised large amounts of money for their cause.†2 After his initial trip to Afghanistan, Usama binShow MoreRelatedLawrence Wrights The Looming Tower Essay1664 Words   |  7 Pageswas Al-Qa’ida. In order to understand the amount of time and effort placed on the research and integrity that supports The Looming Tower, it would help to understand a bit about the author and his background, Lawrence Wright. According to the biography on his website, Wright is no stranger to the Middle East. Having both studied and taught at the American University in Cairo in 1969, he brings firsthand knowledge of the region. He also noted that he did study a bit of Arabic during his days overseas