“The Dance Diaries” Pakistani Movie

“The Dance Diaries” Pakistani movie based on “Dance” Omer hassan is the writer and director of this movie lets move towards his interview and he will tell us abou the movie and its objective.

Q- So, tell us bit about the movie “The Dance Diaries”. What is the objective of it?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): Entertainment, Entertainment and pure entertainment.  No politics, no wadeyraism, no terror plot or doomsday scenario no religious agenda just simple entertainment. In fact this was the exact reason why this movie was born. We were simply tired of seeing nothing but conspiracy theories, stress, tension and bad news all around. You open the tv and you have 50 plus news channels showing you disheartening news, you switch to entertainment channels and you have nothing but the poor girl and the innocent girl being subjected to Zalimsamaj based soap operas and then the icing on the cake was that the initial reports through the grapevine on the revival of our cinema industry were about movies that were being developed on plotlines revolving around fighting conspiracies against the country.

There is a lot more to our country and society than pure misery and that is actually what we have set out to show. Show the positive and a little more modern side of our country. Project that our youth is capable of doing much more than what they are being credited for today.

As a commercial cinematic product The Dance Diaries is aimed to deliver what cinema is meant for ;entertainment. We want our audience to walk out with a smile and warmth in their hearts after watching the film.

It is a movie about coming home and realizing that Pakistan is not such a bad place and that dreams can come true anywhere…even here.

Q- Who is financially supporting you people?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): Initially it was no one, however as the project slowly came to life, we were very lucky to have quite a few friends and family members who came forward, believed in our vision and helped us with the financial aspect of this film. So to answer your question, it was not one or two individuals/institutions who financed this film but rather a host of small investors who bit by bit solved the budget requirements of this film.

We were also blessed that a major brand partner – Nokia, believed in us and agreed to be part of this venture way before shooting began. And then there were a lot of other support partners who took care of logistical issues such as the Avari group who accommodated all the cast members who flew in from outside the city/country, Denizen, GS Garments and Naureen Arbab who took care of the film wardrobe and then numerous volunteers who offered their services as a friendly gesture just to get this project to see the light of the day.

Q- Tell us bit about the cast of the movie? Any renowned actor, actress or young guns?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): We will introduce the cast one by one on our facebook page. However, just to elaborate, this is a very skill specific movie so you won’t find renowned faces in this but what you will find is a set of very skilled people, who bring something to the screen which the audiences of Pakistan have never seen before in a local production.

Secondly, my questions to you are…do we actually have a talent pool for films in Pakistan besides the TV industry?  Would we like to see the same faces that we see on our telly  at home for free on the big screen as well and that too by paying 300 plus rupees per viewing?  Do other cinema industries across the globe share their talent pool with television or is there a separate talent pool for cinema?

The Dance Diaries as I mentioned is about dreams coming true and that is exactly what we are aiming to do in real life as well…make the dream come true for quite a few young guns and give believably to our youth that tomorrow their dreams can come true as well.

However, what I can tell you at this point in time is that our main lead is western (another first for us) and who was involved with this project since mid 2012 and especially flew into Pakistan quite a few times during the entire production process and depending on how the audience takes this film, we will be seeing a lot more of her as she is signed with us for 3 more films.

Q- Tell our reader what is the progress of the movie so far?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): The film has been completely shot, edited and color graded. It is currently being trimmed and composited to give it a flawless smooth flow. On the sound side, the background score is currently in production.

Q- Expected date of the release of the movie?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): We should be ready with the final cut of the film in the coming few weeks, the film will then be handed over to the distributor. It will then be up to the distributor to decide the best window for release.  Of course this is all subject to the distributor not requesting for a change in the edit/flow of the film.

Q- How much is the budget of the film?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): Lol :)! well not as exorbitant as the figures thrown in the market for other films preceding this one. We’d call ourselves a very modest and realistic  budget film.  The final figure, i’ll only be able to share once we lock post and move towards release.

Q- What do you think about the Pakistani film industry?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): What industry?

We have yet to become an industry, currently we have nothing but a few cine-lovers including myself who have set out to achieve a very complicated and difficult goal with absolutely no resources. And by resources I do not mean financial resources, by resources i mean infrastructure and human resource.

We do not have sound stages, we do not have the equipment, we do not have film cities, we do not have film based post set ups, we do not have a film actor pool, we do not have film trained production crew, we do not have film financing set ups and the list goes on. Sure we have a thriving drama and television commercial industry butboth of these are two ends of the spectrum. Drama crews are used to working as fast as doing a whole episode in a matter of hours and producing a whole serial for as cheap as a couple of million rupees or even less, whereas the ad industry is used to working at producing just a minute’s worth of footage in a couple of days and with crores of rupees backing them up.

Where do the film makers fit in? currently nowhere! we are either standing in line behind the admakerstrying to figure out how to manage within our budgets and our strict timelines and still achieve similar production values or we are trying to extract the best out of the resources which the drama industry have created without compromising on the look and feel of the film. A film cannot be as rushed as a drama and yet it does not have the time or the budget luxury of an ad film. And the problem is that our entire support industry is developed for either of these two genres and not yet for film. The little equipment or the infrastructure that we have is mostly being used for the ad industry and at ad rental/procurement prices which in most cases does not make business sense for a film.  It is complicated but so far I guess we all are surviving and getting it done on purely our creativity as filmmakers rather than industry support which is obviously missing because there is no industry.

So we are far from becoming an industry, it won’t be a few films springing out from a revival movement that will make it an industry but let’s hope it lays a foundation.

It will be only when proper support infrastructure, crews and a distribution circuit is in place that we will be able to call it an industry. It’s a catch 22 situation, it won’t be until films start doing big business (and by big business I am referring to crossing the 10 million USD mark) within the domestic circuit that we will see major investment coming into this area and we will never reach this figure without that investment coming in.

But till we reach that time and I hope we do soon, we film makers have to support each other because I believe we are not individuals competing with each other but we are a team who based on our passions are trying our best level to jointly kick start something which our country and our audiences greatly deserve. It is not the big 4 or 5 who define Hollywood or Bollywood as an industry but it is the other 995 film makers who throw movies every year in these markets that make them an industry. So we need film makers, a lot of them, film makers of all forms and sizes, with films that are good, bad, blockbusters, flops so that one day we too can be an industry and till that time we all have to stick together as one and support each other on our respective projects.

Our Audiences are already comparing us to Bollywood and Hollywood, which is actually scary because even our Big budget ventures are low budget compared to these markets. And not to mention that even with our big budgets we are still shooting with all those limitations that I mentioned above.

At the end I believe the creativity of the Pakistani film maker is at par if not better than any film maker in the world and our audiences acknowledge and appreciate that and that is exactly what we should be measured against atleast at this point in time…till we become an industry.

Q- Is this movie similar to Bollywood movie named “ABCD”?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): Depends on what you terms as similarity. For example every boxing film will have a final boxing match in the climax, an underdog as a hero and the villian will be from the boxing world, a powerful icon. Just like in a crew based dance flick where you know the story will revolve around dance crews, a final battle and ofcourse the underdogs coming into play and the antagonist being a powerful established dance entity.  So you pick up any hip hop dance film be it Hollywood or Bollywood’s ABCD, the pattern is similar.

Where we differ is the storyline, the characters, their motivations and their struggles. Dancing is not part of our culture atleast not the kind of dance that we are showing,  it is picking up yes, and that is exactly what we are showing. We have kept it very real, exactly the way hip hop is being tackled by the youth in this country today. You won’t find the graffiti culture, underground clubs or high end dancing set ups within the ‘The Dance Diaries’ because that is not real at least not in Pakistan. It is more of a street scene and that is what we have been true to. Our main protagonist howeveris a female and the entire film revolves around her and this is her story, her journey towards achieving her dreams in a place she thought she would be tied down. So The Dance Diaries is not ABCD nor inspired by it.

It is a unique offering on its’ own and something that all Pakistani’s will associate with.

Q- who is the producer, director of the movie?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): Director is myself, I was aided by Shabbir Siraj my co-director and was assisted by Zohaib Mansoor.

The producer is Zahir Ali. Executive producers are Hammad Hassan, Shahnaz Afsar and I.Shaukat. Co producers are Kamran Younis, Raza Muslim and Yasmeen Ali.

Q- what do you think about islotimes?

Omer Hassan(writer/director): A great initiative, a one stop solution to whatever is happening locally. This can actually evolve into something much bigger on the lines of timeout Dubai and I would love to see it going to that level. So keep on pushing and don’t give up…it’s just the start of the journey.

Readers can follow movie’s offical facebook page for update:
https://www.facebook.com/thedancediaries