BOI: Can you take us through the journey of Dharma Productions?
Karan Johar (KJ): Dharma was formed with my father’s first production venture Dostana, which released in 1980. But, effectively, work on the film started in 1977. At that time, he was a production controller or manager and was actually one of the few men in the country to get front credit for being the first production controller in those days.
Back then, the terminology was ‘production manager’ or ‘controller’. Today, if you call someone a ‘controller’ or a ‘manager’, they will refuse to come on board! Nowadays, they prefer being called ‘Executive Producer’, which is exactly what my father did in Guide, Reshma Aur Shera or Hare Rama Hare Krishna and any of the films he later did with Navketan.
Later, he took a sabbatical for a few years and then turned producer. He was actually supposed to make a film with Gulzar saab and it was actually Nanu’s (Shrishti Behl-Arya) father Ramesh Behl who convinced my father to become a producer. He tried to set up projects with Gulzar saab that didn’t happen. One thing led to another and Raj Khosla, whom my father knew, and my father set up Dostana. Ironically, my mother and Amit uncle (Amitabh Bachchan) attended the same school. They were college friends, and it was a coincidence how all of them came together and Dostana happened. My father collaborated with the Hindujas, and it was the Hinduja family that named the company ‘Dharma’.
Post Dostana, my father kept making films and then I joined in with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Simultaneously, my father had an export company called Yashwant Exports, which is where he made all his money and lost all of it in the movies. Ghar girwi rakhna pada, bechna pada, flop film ke liye high-interest financer ko piase dene pade – I have seen it all! I have seen the way the old school operated.
Today, of course, things are completely different. So Dharma is a product of my father wanting to remain in the industry but somewhere also, strangely, kept carving the way for me.
BOI: You have been a prolific production house over the last decade or so. How do you manage quality control on your various projects?
KJ: We have a really clear divide at Dharma. Apoorva takes care of the administration and finances and I am purely creative. I don’t get into the financials. We can’t compare ourselves with anyone else. Internationally, we can’t draw a parallel. Effectively, we could be like a Jerry Bruckheimer as a producing firm, in the sense that some of our operations are studio-esque and some are production house-like. So we are walking the path between a studio and a production house.
However, we have control over the creative process, and with finance, I think we have trust and delegation. No, actually, instinct, trust and delegation are the three things that I have built a career on. Instinct in spotting the right kind of human resource, whether a director, actor or technicians. Delegation is once you spot them and delegate to them, then you step out. You cannot afford to be a control freak because I don’t think you can control too much creatively. We have done that effectively.
So with Vinil Mathew, who is directing Hasee Toh Phasee, we have launched 13 directorial careers and done tremendously well with first-time directors. We have never worked with an established director except on our project with Rohit Shetty, which hopefully will go on the floors next year. Actually, including myself, it’s a company built on debut directors. I allow them to create a world of their own.
Once I green-light a script, I step out and Apoorva gets into the economics. Next, we lock on a budget. Recently, we have been trying to be budget savvy because, thanks to my overindulgence, we are trying to get our act together. We have been off by 5 per cent, as opposed to 50 per cent, with my track record. Frankly, I have never been in it for the money. I am not here to fly a private jet or own a yacht in the South of France or a mansion anywhere in the world.
I am here to make movies and I love movies. That’s why I co-produced a venture like The Lunchbox. I simply wanted to do it. It wouldn’t make a difference if we don’t make a single rupee on that film because it also has multiple collaborations. But I want to put my name to a good film.
If I had to choose between making a great Hindi film and not making a single rupee out of it or making a big film which earned Rs 50 crore, I would go for the former option. That’s the ethos of the company.
BOI: Apoorva, how do you keep Karan from over-spending?
Apoorva Mehta (AM): I haven’t done any such thing.
KJ: (Laughs) Apoorva is great at policing. Without him, we would fall apart. He is really the fulcrum of the organisation. He holds all of us together. But what can he do when he is dealing with a mad man like me?
You can deal with sanity, you can’t deal with insanity. My decisions are emotional or they are absolutely non-financial. But that’s what I choose and he understands that. So he adjusts his vision according to my temperament and nature. We understand each other.
We have known each other since we were 10 years old. So, as I said, it is a very open-door policy. It is a very warm atmosphere. It’s very casual in its demeanour and its approach and yet thanks to Apoorva and his team, there is a kind of corporate approach as well. It’s just like my birth sign which is Gemini. We can be casual when we have to and formal and legal when we need to. We have a split personality.
BOI: Apoorva, can you take us through the organisation?
AM: Karan is pretty much at the helm. In terms of deciding on a project, he has great acumen, and he is great in guiding us. He understands the big picture and chooses not to get into the small picture of the finances. He guides the team through his vision and we follow his guidance. Whether marketing, production or any other vertical, he always has a solution. So, everything creative is driven by him, and I oversee everything that’s non-creative. We also have a set of people who look into other things.
BOI: How large is the team?
AM: We have 60-70 people but this includes a lot of production people. There is the regular team of marketing, finance and production, and all of them are great at what they do.
BOI: Karan, you mentioned earlier that the company has worked with a lot of first-time directors. Why do you have this penchant for debut directors?
KJ: I like people who are hungry to tell stories and hungry to achieve something. And I think you get that hunger only in new talent, whether a director or actor. They so want to prove a point in their lives and careers that it’s an emotion I completely feed off. When you bring on an established director, there is always a conflict of interest.
I am an ego freak, I know, but I don’t know whether they will take everything I say in the right context. So if there are two directors, it might get into an altogether different zone. If I were only a producer, it would be an altogether different ball game but I am also a director. So there is a dichotomy, which becomes a problem. With first-time directors, the irony is that while I can throw my weight around, I don’t because I feel it works in the reverse. Since without your intervention, they are free and on their own, and they create a product that is unique. I only step in when there is a crisis.
You will never see me step onto the sets of first-time directors. I never tell them how to shoot a scene. If I green-light a film, I never tell them how to plan the film or visualise the film. The only thing I insist on is running their music through me. I believe music is a very commercial and important point of mainstream movies and I don’t want to go wrong with that.
We have gone wrong a couple of times with that. So, I more or less keep track of the music. Sometimes, weak films can pass with great music and we have seen that in the past.
BOI: If you don’t interfere creatively, at what point do you step in?
KJ: During the edit. The final cut is again effectively with us. So, once again, I don’t push that. I believe filmmaking is a collaborative process and is an exceptionally democratic process. And that’s how I like to keep it, even with our first-time directors. I sometimes argue and fight over a scene but it’s always healthy. I encourage a film to be shown to various multitudes of demographics. We do a lot of things like testament screenings.
BOI: And focused screenings?
KJ: Yeah, we do have screenings for focused groups. We call people who are not from the film fraternity including the young lot, 16 to 20-year-olds, a family audience, a more mass audience. We didn’t do this for Kurbaan and I wish I had. But we were so late with its release and didn’t have the time for a focused screening. I realised it was a mistake. If I had, so many things would have cropped up that we could have changed structurally and improved.
When a song of ours is ready, I make the whole office listen to it, and everyone is honest about each work. We don’t have ‘yes men’. If I only had people who praised me, it would be ridiculous. I believe the only way to grow is if you acknowledge the brilliance of others, correct your own weaknesses and try and add to your strengths by getting effective feedback.
BOI: During the edit, if you’re not entirely happy with the film, what do you
do?
KJ: You go into a re-edit, you do add-ons. And if all else fails, then you pray.
BOI: How do you take a call on directing a film as opposed to letting someone else helm it?
AM: He usually directs films that he writes.
KJ: Yes, and I know which films I don’t want to direct. Usually, the germ comes from me and I write my own stuff. But I also don’t hold on to anything very dramatically. Like yeh film main hi banaoonga, yeh film meri hai. Often, I have given my ideas to other directors to make into a film. Like if you like it, you do it. If you develop it and like it, then do it. I don’t hold on to anything directly.