“It’s the hardest time for crystal ball gazing,” says Ajit Andhare, COO, Viacom18 Studios. According to him, the biggest problem is the uncertainty within the film industry, which is causing anxiety and posing fundamental questions in certain aspects of the value chain. The demand side, theatres and footfalls have been discussed, but then there is the supply chain. “How do we produce in the Covid or post-Covid world?” he asks. Will consumer behaviour change? More than the short-term losses, it is these long-term changes which hold the key.
We caught up with Andhare on an Instagram live session on a very opportune day; when the Producers Guild of India had come up with a report outlining the standard operating procedures for film and TV production, and Ormax Media with another on going back to the theatres. Excerpts from the conversation:
What makes the problems and uncertainty unique for the film industry?
The nature of the production of video content, the shooting itself, is not very organised in nature. It depends on who the people are, the Director of Photography’s (DOP) style, the director’s preferences, whether or not he likes all the assistant directors crowding around him. At the heart of it is something which is not factory like; it is individual-driven and to try and mount protocols on a creative process is going to pose more challenges.
The other issue is that the bulk of the industry functions on hired factors of production and labour. What is your ability to contain and control [them]? And they come from all walks of life. How do you ensure the protocols are followed not only on the sets, but also what happens when they go home? … we will need to be far more organised, contained and work with much less than what we are used to.
Since people are shared from across projects, they could be coming from various units. The crucial thing is containment. When you are shooting, can you treat it like a space crew that has gone out of the planet? The first problem that the selection of a clean unit pre-supposes is the ability to test people and that ability is not in the hands of the industry; it’s in the hands of the government.
On the “soft power” being on low priority now
Where are we sitting in the class? We are the backbenchers when it comes to priorities and perhaps rightly so because we are entertainment. Right now, we are dealing with a nation that is struggling to feed a bulk of its citizens… Even when we make representations to the government, we do feel this sense of being told off as they have bigger problems to tackle. There is an inherent problem in you being heard or being given access to those keys. Within the industry, we as leaders will have to focus on our problem of restarting supply. If you are just going to be the backbencher and stand behind, it’s going to be a very long line. So, representations are being made using the soft power: using Rajamouli and Chiranjeevi to talk to the government.
A chunk of the economy is in broadcast [TV]. Revenue losses in TV are staggering and producers are trying at their own end. Then, of course, there are regional producers and actors. Regional associations are talking to the state governments [because this is a state matter], and the Centre has told us that we will need to pursue it with each state government. There are multiple attempts to get permissions to start and then identify places where you can shoot. You can’t shoot as easily in an outdoor location. We don’t have too many locations with facilities like in the West. There is Ramoji, Kolhapur, Kerala and Karnataka. Multiple conversations are on.
Your views on releasing films on OTT platforms.
There are two time frames. We need a contingency plan now, especially those producers who hold ready film stocks. What else do you do? Do you want us to sit with all those films and not put them out? Locking capital makes no sense… Theatres are at the heart of cinema’s value chain and no long-term solution can exclude theatres… If all our lives are essentially handed in the big palms of two major digital platforms, our lives might actually become very cheap.
Keeping Lal Singh Chaddha ’s December date with viewers.
We still need about two months to finish the film. There are two big schedules to be shot and a bulk is outdoors. We are now going to wade in to the monsoons and there is no end to this challenge.
How do we rationalise costs and deal with allocating additional budgets for sanitisation?
I don’t think you can grudge those costs because you have to incur them to counter a real risk. The industry is also going through a lot of cost-cutting which is causing real pain. You have to re-look at every single cost line. The more fundamental question is can we do it more efficiently? Can we do it with lesser people? … We have to realign to this new reality.
On how things will restart.
That order is already evident. Ad films have already started shooting. Some directors in Mumbai have actually directed sequences happening in Bulgaria over video calls. TV will be the next off-ground as it is more containable and in control. Films and series will be the last to get off the ground because of the scale they shoot at and they depend a lot on the outdoors. The narratives are such that they can’t be finished off on a set or a location. The star question will be answered individually: how they react to it and how safe they want to play.
What is Viacom18 working on at present?
Our series, X Ray , which is a massive production, was about to roll from March 28. That had to be pulled off. You have to look at cost lines. How do you restart them? Do you shift locations? For example, XRay is a series for which we had planned to shoot five different stories in five different cities. Now, we are examining if all five can be placed in Goa… Development and planning hasn’t suffered at all. Pre-production hasn’t taken that big a hit… Writers are anyhow in a lockdown when they are with their work…
Key themes that will garner the interest of production houses.
Once we open, there will be a great appetite for the classic theatrical film. Escapism will be back. We might want to see the good old inane comedies. We might go back to some things that we have left behind in the last two years.
On surviving with empathy.
If we become cut and dried and look at every single entity as a cost line, we will be doing a lot of disservice. We are in creative arts and should be a lot more sensitive. The product we deal with is a product of emotions, and if we don’t express feelings then what can you expect from a person who is manufacturing a bus or a truck? We need to be empathetic and responsible to see what is the right way to get through this.
