PhD Thesis Technological Impact on the Art of Moviemaking: Deploying new and convergent media to redefine a model for Pakistan’s Cinema by Ahmad Bilal The Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film to School of Art and Design Nottingham Trent University March 2015 This work is the intellectual property of the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner of the Intellectual Property Rights. 2 All praise belongs to God Dedicated to My Mother Farkhanda Akhtar, Father, Mamu, Professor Shahnawaz Zaidi and Amjad Islam Amjad without whom this research might have remained a dream 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................ 6 Practice and fieldwork ....................................................................... 7 Abstract.............................................................................................. 8 Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................... 9 1.1. Rationale of the research: ................................................................................... 9 1.2. Introduction: ..................................................................................................... 11 1.3. Aim: .................................................................................................................. 24 1.4. Hypothesis: ....................................................................................................... 24 1.5. Objectives: ........................................................................................................ 24 Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Framework ............... 25 2.1. Technological Determinism and Social Shaping .............................................. 28 2.2. National Cinema ............................................................................................... 32 2.3. Media, New Media and Convergent Media ...................................................... 36 2.4. Digital Natives .................................................................................................. 43 2.5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 45 Chapter 3: Methodology .................................................................. 47 3.1. Study of Films .................................................................................................. 49 3.1.1. Analysis to select the films ..................................................................................... 50 3.2. Semi-structured interviews ............................................................................... 52 3.3. Making of films ................................................................................................ 55 3.3.1. Beneath the Sea ...................................................................................................... 56 3.3.2. Sohni Dharti: An Untrue Story ............................................................................... 57 Chapter 4: The Established Cinema ................................................. 59 4.1. Established, Dominant and Residual ................................................................ 60 4.2. Cultural Identity; A conflicting field ................................................................ 62 4.3. Urdu and its Critical Realism ........................................................................... 65 4.4. Achieving a formula ......................................................................................... 71 4.5. The Split of 1971 .............................................................................................. 74 4.6. Violence and Regional Cinemas ....................................................................... 79 4.7. Indian Films; saviours or competitors .............................................................. 86 4.8. Cinema; A Dirty Business ................................................................................ 89 4.9. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 91 Chapter 5: The Emergent Cinema .................................................... 94 5.1. Oppositional or Parallel Efforts ........................................................................ 98 5.2. Pakistan Television (PTV) .............................................................................. 102 5.3. Distinctive Identity ......................................................................................... 108 5.4. Khuda Kay Liye/In the Name of God (2007) .................................................. 112 4 5.5. Bol/Speak (2011) ............................................................................................ 116 5.6. Waar/To Strike (2013); cultural identity to political ideology........................ 118 5.7. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 125 Chapter 6: Creative Element 1; Beneath the Sea ............................ 128 6.1. Setting the Brief .............................................................................................. 131 6.2. Content............................................................................................................ 134 6.2.1. Story and characterisation .................................................................................... 135 6.2.2. National with a transnational appeal .................................................................... 137 6.3. Production Design; A learning process from script to screen ......................... 140 6.3.1. Phase 1; Rehearsals and radio recording .............................................................. 142 6.3.2. Phase 2; Actual location ....................................................................................... 143 6.3.3. Phase 3; Minimalist settings ................................................................................. 144 6.4. Theatre; A medium of resistance .................................................................... 145 6.5. Production ....................................................................................................... 151 6.6. Conclusion and Outcomes .............................................................................. 152 Chapter 7: Creative Element 2; Sohni Dharti: An untrue story ..... 156 7.1. Setting the brief; Mobile Phone as cinema ..................................................... 158 7.1.1. Oh My God .......................................................................................................... 160 7.1.2. Black Words ......................................................................................................... 161 7.1.3. Sohni Dharti: An untrue story .............................................................................. 162 7.2. Planning .......................................................................................................... 163 7.3. Production ....................................................................................................... 166 7.4. Distribution ..................................................................................................... 168 7.5. Learning: ......................................................................................................... 174 Chapter 8: Conclusion .................................................................... 176 8.1 Findings ..................................................................................................... 176 8.2 Contributions ............................................................................................. 182 8.3 Future Plans ............................................................................................... 184 8.4 List of Publications and Presentations: ...................................................... 186 9. Reference: .................................................................................. 188 9.1 Films: ......................................................................................................... 211 List of Figures Figure 1: Outline Sketch of Research Design ........................................................................... 11 Figure 2: Graph Showing Recent Decline in Pakistani Films ................................................... 12 Figure 3: Practice in Research Design ...................................................................................... 58 Figure 4: PTA’s role in Pakistan by Reporters without Borders Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 5: PTA’s role in Pakistan ................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 6: Robert Pratten's (2015)Trans-media in Pictures ...................................................... 185 5 Acknowledgements On completion of this research work my gratitude goes to the prestigious institutions that largely contributed and to the people whose help and encouragement have been a great support throughout the journey to it. The University of