The year 2020 kickstarts with a new idea from a Chennai production house that seems passionate about cinema. They’ve titled their offering Binge Shorts.
This initiative is the brainchild of Mongoose Studios’ Vikas Anand Sridharan, a filmmaking student from New York Film Academy, Los Angeles. An effort that combines short films and the web series format, binge shorts revolves around three vital aspects: it will have the same character set in the same universe, features no dialogues and will last only five minutes.
“It will take you on a trip,” promises Vikas, “While a short film is a one-off thing, binge shorts will make you connect with the characters.” His first effort, titled Nightmares , features theatre actor Pooja in the lead and is based on a single character being haunted by eight different ghosts in the same location. “We shot it entirely inside my house,” he reveals, “We bought colour bulbs for lights, and most of the film has minimal lighting. We showed one house as six locations, because of the differential lighting and artwork.”
The team, consisting of Shivram PK, Manu Kathiresan, Abhijith Ramaswami and Charanyaa Murali, is gearing up for another binge short on the thriller genre soon. Vikas himself is keeping other stories ready for subsequent projects as well, and is looking to expand to ‘thriller shorts’ and ‘romantic shorts’ in the near future. “This style has a huge potential for growth. A basic short film is one that you watch and move on. A web series is an awesome platform, but it is long and you need to dedicate time for it. But with a binge short, you can finish an entire one just during your commute time from work to home.”
Binge shorts are aimed at the short attention span of people towards video content. “They can watch the entire series within 20-30 minutes,” he says.
The team is expecting the binge shorts universe to expand in the years to come. “With enough viewership, we can rope in bigger actors and stars into it,” he says, “With each episode spanning less than five minutes, the possibilities of bringing in brands and companies are high.”
But their biggest achievement will be if it attracts newer, younger talents who are looking for that big break in the film circuit. “Once it becomes a sustainable platform, we hope to bring in new directors, writers, and cinematographer to create their own content. This will help upcoming and struggling artistes and technicians to showcase their talent,” he concludes.
Watch the first ‘Binge Shorts’ here
