MxMIndia

Tag: Anurag Basu

  • It's a win-win for all: six top directors try their hands at films inspired by HUL products on MTV, a project engineered by Mindshare

    Leveraging films by top guns on MTV

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    In a seemingly volatile broadcast scenario in India, it is a given that only ideas that are fresh and out-of-the-box manage to make a mark while the others face the possibility of being rejected. In a synergy that probably plans to change the way the genre has been approached until now, leading youth channel MTV has joined hands with FMCG major Hindustan Unilever to launch MTV Films.

     

    The idea germinated out of a casual conversation that MTV and HUL’s media buying and planning agency Mindshare had sometime last year. Convincing HUL was easy for Mindshare, and since then it’s getting all parts of the act together.

     

    The initiative would see six young and well-known directors known for their cutting edge film making styles making original movies just for television. Eminent movie directors including Anurag Basu, Abhinay Deo, Shoojit Sircar, Rohan Sippy, Nikhil Advani and Anurag Kashyap have been assigned the task of bringing the idea alive on television.

     

    What would make this initiative unique is that MTV Films would be a mixed bag of six movies based on brand philosophies of different HUL products that will be showcased every month.

     

    An initiative to provide film buffs a unique movie viewing experience in the comfort of their homes, MTV Films offers a mix of all the ingredients that connect with the youth instantly. These 60-minute movies are inspired by HUL’s brands like Sunsilk, Ponds, Tresemme, Close Up, Lakme and depict today’s generation’s perspective on love, friendship, family, responsibilities in a light hearted fashion.

     

    Speaking about this initiative, Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head of MTV said, “It’s been a treat to watch six very special people look at youth through such different lenses. This project has redefined the rules of television and branded content in so many ways. Everyone around the table today has dared to take risks and it’s that spirit that has made this an exciting journey for all of us. With a new film being released every month, MTV Films can become a very strong franchise.”

     

    Hemant Bakshi, Executive Director, Home & Personal Care, HUL, said, “HUL firmly believes in pioneering and creating newer ways of engaging consumers by leveraging popular culture. With the launch of MTV Movies, we will re-define the way in which brands tell their stories to consumers. This initiative will focus on communicating brand purpose and we are confident that it will resonate with our audience and build brand love.”

     

    The initiative will see Bollywood, television and the corporate world collaborate to give consumers content they can best relate to. While MTV India is seen as the channel that has its check on the pulse of today’s youth, the film-makers roped in for this initiative have already made waves with their art and have an increasingly large fan base in the younger generation. Their unique approach and cutting edge portrayal of different themes has made a lasting impact on many. It is befitting then, that Hindustan Unilever – known for their innovative touch in every initiative – imbibes these themes in their brand philosophy and make MTV Films the perfect platform to reinforce their connect with the youth of today.

     

    ‘For HUL, the films are beyond passive integration… more of active integration’
     

    Aditya Swamy
    Ravi Rao

    Q&A with Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head, MTV and Ravi Rao, Leader, Mindshare South Asia

     

    And we thought MTV was a music channel… has the basic positioning changed by this move of getting into movies?

    Aditya Swamy: MTV is about entertainment and if you see there is a strong music element to all of the stuff that we create. So there’s this film that we showcased at the preview where a bunch of girls coming together to run a radio station…similarly there is a strong musical element in all the films.

     

    But the core premise of the channel initially was just around music…

    Aditya Swamy: My sense is that the audience is changing. Twenty years ago when we were asked what music you listened there were a few names that came top of mind. But the times have changed today where the youth have a plethora of options to choose from. Right from the brands they wear or endorse they are getting defined by a lot of other factors. So as the audience is moving forward the only way to stay relevant is to move with them. Like I say, music is synonymous with creativity and creativity will always be the sole of MTV. That’s where we take this from; it’s storytelling.

     

    Would you elaborate on the cost aspect of the deal with HUL?

    Aditya Swamy: I wouldn’t be able to talk about the costs and budgets but I would say the challenge is going to be for partners to have deals that bring in good ROI for everyone concerned. If you see the films, they are not cheap or made on handheld camera they are films made by some big directors and have the latest technology to its credit. Moreover the audiences want a quality product and the directors are creating films which are mega in approach. I think the objective will be that when a viewer sees this he would not feel that these are films made specifically for television; the content rests seamlessly across different platforms and this platform happens to be the TV platform.

     

    Was it tough to get the creative folk to weave in brands in the stories?

    Aditya Swamy: For me the real cool thing has been getting these six directors together but the common thing that ties all of them together is that they are going to jump into a space that they haven’t done before. According to me, what excites creative people is taking up new challenges. Earlier they used to tell stories in two-and-half hours now they have to say it in 60 minutes. So it’s challenges such as these that excite these people. They’ve always been leading the charge that let’s do something beyond advertising. This idea was something that everybody quickly latched onto immediately.

     

    How involved or over-involved were brands with the project?

    Aditya Swamy: If you see the film it’s a new era in branded content. We’ve not needlessly pushed brands; it’s about the brand philosophy coming to life. Once they were onboard the philosophy then they would like to run.

     

    Ravi Rao: I’d like to add here by saying that when you do a product integration exercise, the emphasis is how do I ensure that it is not just passive integration but more of an active integration. In these films what we did was give a positioning line for a brand and told them to interpret the way they want. If you see the banners that we have got it has been completely imagined by the directors themselves.

     

    At Mindshare, you’ve handled spends across various platforms. How different was this exercise for you?

    Ravi Rao: Whether we like it or not, content has been an important storyline for a long time. It’s just that the canvas is the same but we have made it bigger with high production values and great directors onboard. Also, for example when you say a shampoo can clean your hair, there are a whole lot of other attributes that can come aboard because it’s to do with the person and his/her choice of using the shampoo. It was a good opportunity to go beyond the 30- or 50-seconder where you can tell a story in a much more fluent way. To that extent it is going away from mainstream and making it even more interesting.

     

    Would you be engaging in a high decibel cross-platform promotion for this initiative?

    Ravi Rao: I think you should wait and see because some of the promotional ideas that we have got on this is very unique. It won’t be like what you see the other movies doing. It will be different. Also, while television as a medium will be huge, we would be exploiting the digital platform too. If the word-of-mouth happens you will see audiences coming back towards it. The first movie is just the trigger; you will have to wait to see how fine the others shape up as well.

     

    For the last six years, Mindshare has been trying to do the content space differently. The team has done a fantastic job this time too. Here it is about how you generate impact; what is the right story that we need to do and what is the media that will be apt for the initiative. It is also about being flexible and doing things in a unique way.

     

    An FMCG company like HUL is known to be very tough on deliverables…

    Ravi Rao: They still are but they have been fair. It is also about their philosophies; on the one end, they are talking about getting great effectiveness but they also lay great emphasis on innovation. We have pushed our idea limits to see what more can we do. If the idea is strong enough for a brand to capitalise it works brilliantly and HUL gives a canvas to do it our way.

     

     

  • Barfi!'s pages are screaming with links on plagiarism stories and articles. There is no way the jurors will vote for a copycat flick, even if it's an excellent piece of work. Barfi!'s chances are as good as finished. They may as well withdraw the entry

    Anil Thakraney: Barfi! is jacked!

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    There’s a heated debate going on in the media on the issue of the film Barfi! being sent as India’s entry for the Oscar awards. I haven’t watched the film yet (though must say the Twitter reviews have been quite flattering). So am in no position to comment on the merits of the film. Perhaps it deserved to be chosen.

     

    However, soon after the entry was sent to LA, knives, cutters and blades are out to kill the film’s chances. Deadly accusations of plagiarism are being flung around, it’s alleged that the director Anurag Basu has lifted many scenes from international cinema, in fact, they say he’s literally copied them. I don’t think Indian film journalists are behind these accusations, most of them don’t have the skill or knowledge to run such an expose. Clearly, these are Basu’s rivals at work, or directors of films that didn’t get chosen for an Oscar entry.

     

    All very fine, and rats do need to be brought out from under the red carpet. The problem is this: Oscar awards’ jurors aren’t a bunch of jokers (unlike the Indian cricket team selectors!), and once they have appreciated a foreign film, they will most likely Google it for reviews and other inputs. So that they make an informed decision. And Barfi!’s pages are screaming with links on plagiarism stories and articles. There is no way the jurors will vote for a copycat flick, even if it’s an excellent piece of work. Barfi!’s chances are as good as finished. They may as well withdraw the entry.

     

    What saddens me about this incident is the crab mentality that Indian creative people suffer from. Even for ad awards there have been constant accusations of rival creative directors deliberating sabotaging campaigns. That sick attitude of: ‘Main nahin jeeta, ab iski maaroonga.’

     

    I really don’t know when we’ll learn to be confident of our own work, and applaud those to do better work. The correct thing would have been to screw Barfi! and its maker AFTER the Oscar awards is done. So that an Indian film is allowed a shot at scoring a prize.

     

    Alas, it was not to be. We will win nothing at the Academy awards. Yet again.

     

    ***

     

    PS: While on the subject of cheating, here’s another one. Ad film directors often cheat while shooting to generate a dramatic effect. That’s quite usual, and no one bats an eyelid. But when the cheating is done to directly enhance a promise that the brand makes in the ad, then we go into the area of fraud. Here’s an alert soul who’s busted Nokia. This example is a warning for all advertisers and their ad agencies to operate within the ethical zone.

     

    Link: http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294545/nokias-pureview-ads-are-fraudulent

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews

    Reviewing the Reviews: Barfi!

    Barfi!

    Key Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ileana D’Cruz

    Written and Directed By: Anurag Basu

    Produced By: Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapoor

     

    Anurag Basu’s last film was the disastrous Kites, so he really needed to prove his credentials again. The charming, though often oversweet story of a deaf-mute man and the two loves of his life is so far ahead of the regular Bollywood mainstream tripe, that hardly any critic had the heart to give it less than 3 stars, and gently point some of its flaws. Everyone agreed, however, that Ranbir Kapoor is brilliant and his two leading ladies, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz, were excellent too.

     

    Rajeev Masand of Ibnlive wrote, “That rare film that puts a smile on your face even before a single frame of the story is revealed, Anurag Basu’s Barfi envelopes you like a warm blanket from the moment you settle into your seat. Even as routine acknowledgements appear on a black screen, you’re charmed by the accompanying ditty, Picture shuru, whose chorus instructs you to switch off your phones and submit yourself to the experience that follows.” Still he stuck with 3 stars.

     

    Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times offered reluctant praise and 3 stars. “In Barfi, writer-director Anurag Basu creates a gossamer, fairy-tale world. Sometime in the 1970s, somewhere in the misty hills of Darjeeling, a penniless but irresistibly charming deaf-mute boy named Barfi gets the prettiest girl in town to kiss him. But their sweetly awkward love affair comes undone, after which Barfi embarks on an adventure with an autistic girl. Somehow these two, on their own, manage to survive the city of Kolkata – Barfi gets a job and even a ramshackle house with a spectacular view of Howrah Bridge. To point out that this is unlikely seems churlish. Because Barfi is designed to be a bittersweet, tender fable.”

     

    Shubra Gupta of the Indian Express also gave it three and commented. “Just the fact that this film’s chief focus is on two people who cannot communicate the way you and I do, makes it automatically different. Barfi!’ comes out of mainstream Bollywood, whose standard idea of creating difference is to shuffle one step forward, two steps back : given that context, and its subject, Barfi! does take several brave strides. It’s good in many ways; what stops it from being a great film is a degree of fuzziness, and an insistence on prettiness.”

     

    Raja Sen called it flawed but still had good things to say. “Romance is never easy. Neither is bringing it to the big screen, though Anurag Basu – a filmmaker inherently gifted when it comes to visual imagery and metaphor – is a fine man for the job. He can roll up his sleeves and whip out one peachy moment after another, keeping things wonderfully endearing while poking the audience ever so forcefully in the gut with a monkey-wrench. He is then to be commended for his latest, Barfi!, a film that admirably refuses to yank the sympathy cord. Instead, it creates genuine characters and a truly charming relationship before, alas, one of his lead characters chooses not to follow the director’s example and instead mistakes sympathy for love, making for a lesser film than it deserved to be.”

     

    Madhureeta Mukherjee of the Times of India, expectedly went with 4.5 stars – the highest it received. “He was born to a song playing on a Murphy radio, but this ‘Murphy’ baby (Ranbir) aka Barfi has a different law. Everything that has to go wrong will go wrong, but not if you brave it with a broad smiley. So ‘mute’ the high-decibel chaos and deafening melodrama around and tune into Barfi ki duniya; which is simple, sweet and SILENT! Yet, extreme emotions of love, joy and pain resound – at different ‘frequencies’.”

     

    The always-enthusiastic Taran Adarsh of bollywoodhungama.com gave it a relatively mingy 4 stars, going by the rave. “On the whole, Barfi! is unusual for Bollywood. You don’t formulate movies like Barfii! targeting its box-office potential or its commercial prospects. You create such films for the passion of cinema. Barfi! is akin to a whiff of fresh air. Its foremost triumph is that it leaves you with a powerful emotion: Happiness! I sincerely believe no Hindi movie buff should deprive himself/herself of watching this brilliant motion picture. Also, the viewer needs to savour Ranbir, Priyanka and Ileana’s paramount performances, one of the strengths of this movie. Strongly recommended!”

     

    Aniruddha Guha of DNA gushed, “A movie like Barfi! comes along rarely. It’s a film that engages you at a personal level, playfully nudging you to experience various emotions without really resorting to overt manipulation, one that makes you laugh and cry at the same time, and reminds you of what Roberto Benigni told us some time ago: Life is beautiful.”

     

    Kunal Guha of yahoo.com who is usually acerbic softened enough to write, “When a movie begins by revealing the grim end, no matter how cheerful the following flashback journey may be, you’re left dreading the inevitable. But Barfi! manages to make you forget just that by narrating a lighthearted tragedy that wins particularly for what it doesn’t do: It doesn’t draw a pitiful picture of the deaf-mute lead. It doesn’t attempt to do anything that would suggest that it has been made to attract foreign festival ferns on the DVD cover. It doesn’t make the lead character overcome his disability to do something no man, woman or dog (without that disability) would ever think of attempting.”

     

    So the one rant by Karan Bali from upperstall.com went, “No doubt, it’s commendable that Barfi! tries to treat its plot and characters in an endearing Chaplinesque sort of way by mixing light and slapstick humour with a tug or two at the heart-strings – and I’ll even say that you so want it to work, and not just box-office wise, for more better, sensible films to be made in Bollywood – but sadly, the film is unable to quite pull it off. Yes, it has its charming moments, it boasts of some great visual quality in places, even has good performances but still ends up finally as being curiously uninvolving and, dare I say it, boring, its length really telling in the second half.”