Page 83 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

70 << Industrial Identity in an Era of Reform

which personal trust was highly valued and determined deal making. This
explanation also focuses on the prominence of independent producers as the
main reason for the demise of the studios that were established during the
1920s and 1930s. But as Brian Shoesmith has argued, there were a number
of other forces and factors that led to the gradual marginalization of studios
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in central and north India. Besides, it is worth keeping in mind that pro-
duction relations and the structure of studios that emerged during the 1930s
and 1940s in south India varied a great deal in comparison with those that
emerged in Bombay. But for the purposes of my analysis here, it is important
to note that the studios and other production companies that dominated the
Hindi-language film industry operated on what Barnouw and Krishnaswamy
call the “one-big-family” principle with tight family control over ownership
and key managerial positions. In other words, even during the so-called “stu-
dio era,” film production was defined by kinship ties and close-knit social
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networks. And what is particularly striking in the case of the Bombay film
industry is the reproduction and sustenance of these relationships and net-
works over successive generations to the extent that the families and close
friends of producers, directors, and stars from the 1950s continue to domi-
nate the film industry today.
Where the transition from Bombay cinema to Bollywood is concerned,
the influence of kin networks has meant the evolution of an organizational
form in which a small group of established producers and a number of inde-
pendent producers, both operating small-scale companies, dominate a frag-
mented production sector. A recent study by Mark Lorenzen and Florian
Taube notes that “all the top 30 earning Bollywood films in 2003–05 were
produced by a total of 20 production companies,” with “retained earnings,
private loans by family, rich friends or associates, and agreements with dis-
tributors still the preferred modes of finance for more than two-thirds of
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Bollywood film projects in 2006.” In fact, as the table detailing the top 5
earning Bollywood films from 2000 to 2009 reveals (Appendix 2), a majority
of the most successful films have been made by established producers oper-
ating companies that are more often than not, family-owned and/or man-
aged by a small circle of trusted friends and family members (only 8 of the
top 100 earning films were produced by large media corporations). 31
Consider the trajectory of Yash Raj Films, a celebrated, privately held
family-run production company that was founded by Yash Chopra in 1970.
It built on its successes during the mid-1990s to establish itself as a vertically
integrated company in Bollywood with interests in television and music as
well. Yash Chopra began his film career as an assistant to his brother B. R.
Chopra, directing such films as Dhool Ka Phool (1959, Blossom of Dust)