Movie making in Bollywood...

The shortest route to a hit

• Copy a hit hollywood flick
• Copy a flop hollywood flick
• Copy a hit Tamil movie
• Dub / Re-make a hit Tamil movie in Hindi
• Remake an old hindi movie
• Convert a Hindu mythological epic, like the Ramayan ( Do not try you can show maginificent sets, less than 100 people in 1 family living under one roof and unless you are Suraj barjatiya :) )

Shortest route to a flop (must avoid)

• Get Ramgopal verma to remake an old hindi movie or make anything other than about the underworld ( or the-other-world for that matter ;) )
  
• Get Suraj barjatiya to make a yet another family drama out of hindu mythology ( or make anything at all really) !
• Give Sanjay Leela Bhansali some blue paint!

Want to be original? That'll take a bit more effort, but here are some quick tips

A hero, a heroine, a love line (irrespective of the story or theme), 1 candy love song, 1 item number (lyrics can be replaced with screams of gibberish to the tune of blaring saxophones & drums), 1 sizzler ( Moaning & similar sounds can be used in place of lyrics ) are a must. Rest as follows :-

Creating a Love triangle?

• 2 friends/siblings agonizing over the same lover. Not one thinks of actually asking the lover. One ends up dying either fighting the other or the common villan
• The thought-to-be dead lover/spouse returns hale-n-hearty only to find his partner married to some one else; usually an old friend;do kill the returned character for a convenient, hasslefree, clear end.

Creating a family drama ?

• Feuding brothers (and/or their wives) over family property, however big or small, is a never failing classic with the Indian cine goers. However, these are not made anymore. Wonder why...maybe people get too much of the Ambani brothers on the news anyway!
• Violence against the daughter-in-law at the hands of dowry hungry in-laws and a liberated hero and/or heroine to fix things. But then, these too are out of fashion these days. Again too much news is killing the movie business

So family dramas are out..even for Suraj Barjatiya

Creating an action flick ?

• Ah!! now with Sunny Deol retired and Akshay Khanna, Suniel Shetty & all the bad men Paresh Rawal, Shati Kapoor etc. turned into full time comedians ( with varying levels of success ) .... action flicks are totally out of production, unless you are thinking of Rajnikanth ofcourse, who still can stop a train with one hand and no super powers! :)

Creating a Karan Johar ?

• Yes.That's a genre in itself. Take Sharukh Khan, create a story around him, write every scene to personify his presence, cast Amitabh Bachchan and Saif ali khan to look like a complete idiots, make sure their every dialgoue is just an excuse to give Sharukh more camera focus and dialogues. Create larger-than-life sets and/or shoot overseas and call it a small town in India, go to Oxford and turn it into a 24*7 disc.Get Kajol and Rani to give guest appearances. Use the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai soudntrack as the background score. As long as Sharukh Khan is the messiah (however right or wrong he may be) , and he wins in the end, the movie will pick up a number of Filmfare awards. And you can always get free publicity on Koffee with Karan. The story doesn't matter. No story doesn't matter either.
  

Creating a Farah Khan ?

• Similar to Karan Johar, except that instead of Kajol, Rani & Kuch Kuch hota hai soundtrack, you would need at least one flowing 70's dance sequence, complete with the costumes and the "Eastman Color" print. Make sure Sharukh is down on his knees with arms outstretched in at least half the movie, to hide the fact that he is shorter than yet another heroine. Best choreography guaranteed
  

Creating a cross-over comedy ?

• Add Rahul Bose, Ranveer Shauri, (these days) Mallika Sherawat, some old day actors like Sayara (who would invariably be acting better & looking more graceful than the half clad half wit Mallika). Quickly put together a simple, realistic small story, add a lot of double meaning jokes and spice it up with increasingly unrestrained s** scenes. Once you are sure no one can ever watch it with their parents, you are bound to get a hit with the young crowd ;) Centering the story around NRI families and dosing the movie heavily with heavily-accented-english will get huge international returns as well!

Creating a Comedy? this is the easiest

• Pick up either one of the above movies, put in one or more of Govinda, Paresh Rawal, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh, Bipasha basu, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif & Rajpal Yadav in any combination with a few others. Randomly jumble the pages of the actual story. Get David Dhawan, Priyadarshan or Boney Kapoor to direct your movie, depending on how much nonsense, confusion or sleaze you want to add in the movie. Use in combination for better results. Replace half the dialogues with sleazy one liners and the other half with meaningless one liners and you are done! :)

Creating a movie for a social cause?

• That's just for people who have surplus funds that they offload through flop movies so that they can escape taxes. The Indian audience has a long way to go before it can start appreciating movies with genuine social messages like homosexuality, AIDS, domestic violence, rape,corruption, communalism and gender bias (Yes fellas...we're still stuck with the same social problems even after nearly 60 years of freedom; though I admit homosexuality and AIDS are relatively new )

Creating a genuinely original cross over movie?

• Refer to the "Creating a movie for a social cause" section

Creating a nice watchable enjoyable movie with fair amount of risk?

• Contact Shaad Ali, Farhan Akhtar, Naagesh Kukunoor and the likes
• If you are thinking of Amir Khan, book him in January and book some one else to collect the awards ;) Oh and don't forget to pay for Amir Khan's all new hair style, which will be essential to his character in the movie. Oh I am sorry, did I not say, he has to be the hero!! :)
  

Not sure what to create ?

• Gather as many stories and actors as you can in one place and start shooting. that's it!

Have I missed anything?? Oh yes, the horror / paranormal / supernatural ...

• Please contact Ramgopal Verma & Urmila Matondkar for further details. At this, both are "super natural" ;)

Feel free to add to the list if there's any Bollywood original formulae that I have missed ;)