Gana No.1 - the inside story

Insiya Syed delves into the controversy surrounding the new Noori video and questions the ethics that govern the re-edit of a song.

Pakistan's pop music industry is going through its cycle of evolution and one wonders if it's any coincidence that all these new bands, a new music channel and a battle of the bands happened around the same time. All of these in their own way did help people realize that music here could have more than just one dimension.

Among the newer bands Noori is one band, which has managed to make its presence felt through various means. Whether it's their frequent concerts in the three big cities Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, their unplugged performances, their unique way of entering the music scene (their music came to the forefront through the Internet), their upbeat videos or now a controversy, Noori has a way of clicking with the audience. Yes, controversy has managed to catch the band, which had, so far, enjoying very smooth sailing.

Noori has been known for making videos on themes that mostly click with the audience. Each video of theirs is based on a theme different to the other. Due to their experimental character their videos have run into trouble with censors too. Their video "Khalla” eventually got banned from TV after making a few rounds on the channels. The state-run channel had their own reasons not to show "Manwa Re" as it had certain scenes from the area that many would like to believe, simply does not exist in Pakistan. Then came "Tum Hans Diyay", which was an effort much appreciated by the legions of Noori listeners all over! Noori went on a patriotic tangent with the stereotypical video of "Jana Tha Hum Ne". All of these videos were directed by the band and edited at Noori's Small Sounds/Big Videos.

After "Jana Tha Hum Ne", Noori decided to embark upon their next project and time the release of their next video around the time of the release of their album "Suno Ke Mein Hun Jawan". For a change they also decided to get a non-Noori unit entity to direct the video. Noori approached Babar Sheikh in Karachi in November 2002. "I thought that the idea sounded great, as (being closely related to the Pakistani music scene) I thought that Noori's music was a breath of fresh air in the 'Over saturated commercial pop market' of Pakistan," says Babar. Initially the plan was to make the video of another song. "We wanted to make the video for "Bol" and shoot it in Lahore," says Ali Noor."

Ali Noor proposed a video to be made for another song on their album, which I personally thought, was rather slow for a 'Release Video' (since Noori planned this video to be their debut video after the release of their album.). So I eventually selected "Gana No 1" as the project since the energy that surrounded the song had all the characteristics that Noori wanted to portray," clarifies Babar. Conceptualising and eventually creating the visuals to "Gana No 1" was an initiative taken by Babar and Diagram Films (his film company) during the time of December 2002. It was also decided that the shoot would take place in Karachi.

When Babar was asked to narrate the early stages of the conceptualisation he went on to tell us, "All was agreed and I came up with a concept that was quite new to the visual market of Pakistan. The concept suggested that there would be no storyline whatsoever, and the entire video would just be a series of visuals with the entire band performing along with their fans energizing the whole thing. It was really quite European as there was nothing much to it except for the crisp visuals. The entire vision was to shoot the band, in their given spaces, with a variety of fresh angles and crisp editing. But this was not just it. The element that really was to set the video apart from all others was that there would be four edits, running at the same time in the form of four different screens, contained in one."

The question that now pops up is that when everything was agreed then what was the problem? "It turned out that the idea was very similar to our video, "Tum Hans Diyay"," says Ali Noor. But even then they (Noori) decided to go ahead and do the video. In simpler words did the band have a problem with the idea from the beginning but ignored it? Ali Noor still believes that he did not at all interfere with Babar's work."

The budget wasn't really anything huge for the production, even though I was told that it will eventually cost more money, I still went ahead doing it, asking for personal favors from production houses, and post production set ups, where I would at the end of the day tone and edit the video. All went smoothly throughout the shoot, but the edit was a really lengthy one, as this was like making four different edits for the same song. I truly salute my Editor and Cameraman for their hard work and patience and for sticking by my belief in the video," says Babar.

The shoot happened and so did the (first) edit and the guys were called in to observe the cut. Babar describes the scene at that point of time in these words; "It was great, as they all immediately approved it within the time frame of 20 minutes. I truly regarded their approval, as I thought that they had seen the vision (my vision), which was an aesthetic piece of work rather than a storyline alongside a love stuck couple."

Whereas Ali Noor has a different point of view; "When we saw the final edit it seemed as if the video was done really quickly. Now we spent a lot of money on it and we wanted a good result. As soon as the video was released people bombarded us with criticism like "you're ripping off your own video!" Our sources of information are the forums online and our fans did not like it. And if they don't then we are not satisfied too. And to be really honest the video made no sense!" Ali Noor goes on, "When we make our videos ("Khalla", "Manwa Re", "Tum Hans Diyay" and "Jana Tha Hum Ne") we actually take a month or so to edit it and at times even re-edit it to make it look just perfect. I don't know how it works in Karachi because I think Babar took three to four days to edit the entire thing. This shows that either he didn't have the time or maybe he wasn't interested in it at all!"

Babar understood that the video might not instantly click with the audience, which are comfortable watching videos with a consistent flow and a story they could identify with. "When I learnt that one of the Noori supporting websites has posted critical remarks about the video I explained to Ali Noor that this was normal. The video was more of an artistic vision and I knew the general public would most definitely be critical about this as this is something new and out of the box for them," believes Babar.

One of the reasons Noori fans didn't agree with the video could be that the fans that were auditioned for the video could hardly see their faces in it. For them being in a 'Noori video' was a chance to become a celebrity and the crisp editing of the video took that away from them."

After the video got released I went to Singapore with a friend, Wajahat (Cafe M-Live's owner who has done his Masters in Films and Advertising from Los Angeles). I asked him to re-edit the video. Initially I wanted to redo the entire video but we eventually decided to make a new edit," states Ali Noor.

Continues Babar, "Later I received a call from Ali Noor, demanding the raw footage to the video. I didn't care much to ask him why, and as I really knew what he was going to be doing. And to be very honest I don't have a high opinion at all for this act and consider this to be quite unethical," speaks Babar.

There were rumours making their round that Ali Noor did not even bother to inform Babar of his intention. Ali only clarifies that, "It's not true that I didn't inform Babar. I did tell him and even at that time he showed no interest and told me to go ahead. It was like "Us kay sar say bojh utar gaya ho!" I told him that I'd save you from the hassle by getting the video re-edited and writing your name in the credits. I did not want to get into the mess again by getting him to re-edit the video."

So now the new-edit has started airing on Indus and in fact even the older edit manages to find its space. I wondered if Babar had any comments on the 'single dabba' version. "Even though I am not stationed in Pakistan at this point, I receive emails as to how come this new version is running. I really don't want to comment on what comments I received really, as I don't want to cause any bitterness between Diagram and Noori, but really, I would have expected Noori or rather Ali Noor to stick by this artistic expression that we envisioned together. No comments whatsoever on the new editing, as the person who did the edit was really doing his job. Nonetheless, I can own up to the fact that such an action was taken for the first time (as far as I can recall) in the industry and that I exposed Gumby like no one can ever expose a drummer. And I still live by the comments that were initially given to me as a result of the four box edit by some of the people in the local and international media, whose comments I really respect, not to mention the excited comments from Ali Noor when he saw for the first time."

Is Ali Noor still as excited or even more? And does he have any regrets?"It's all about getting something done well. And this was surely a job not well done. I make videos with no technical expertise but I make sure that I give my best input whereas "Gana No 1" was incompetently done. I am to blame for it because I was in a hurry to release the song along with the debut album and I left it all to him!" says Ali Noor.

This was surely a statement in the local video market, as nothing like this (however simple it is really) was ever done before. Our reason of doing this write-up was not to decide which edit is better and which is not. It is more about highlighting the complexities that arise out of a system that has so far been relying on goodwill and trust on each other. The endnote shall be Babar's optimistic view; "This is really quite unfortunate and further impales my belief for strong visual expressions in the Pakistani media. But I still swear by the fact, that we shall "Design and conquer!"

What they had to say...

Jami:

If there was understanding between the band and the director, it’s okay to do such a thing. But if the director was not informed than this is surely badmashi. The re-edits of videos do happen for instance Indus Music has done some re-edits where they remove the product shots of sponsored videos. Even one of my video has been re-edited (Pal Do Pal by Najam Shiraz) for censor related reasons. And there are different version running on air.

There are no particular steps that one can take after such a thing but the director must warn the other directors so that they don’t work with such people. I don’t think that something like this has ever been done before!

Ahsan Rahim:

This is a really wrong thing to do and must not be done! It has never been done in our case. If you are getting someone to direct the video than you must agree to his point of view. It is wrong ethically as well.

As far as the footage is concerned, if the band is funding for the video than the director can’t really refuse to give the chunks to the band in case they ask for it. But the case these days is that our singers/musicians consider themselves to be ace directors too. So if they think they are really smart then they should go ahead and make their own videos themselves.

There has been a re-edit of my video (Intizaar by Hadiqa Kiyani – 2 dabbas converted to 1 dabba!) but I was the one who re-edited too! Most of the time when you re-edit the video you end up running your own song!

Asim Raza:

Unfortunately I haven’t seen the video. But I guess if it was Ali Noor’s song and his money then he has the right to show his likes or dislikes. The problem is that unfortunately there are no right for even music piracy in Pakistan. And steps can only be taken when any sort of paper work had been done prior to the shoot. Which I am pretty sure must not have happened!

By: Insiya Syed

First published: Instep, News on Sunday, Sunday 18 May 2003, The News International, Jang Group of Newspapers, Karachi, Pakistan.