00:00I really like cook lenses and they can be very cinematic and really great so I enjoyed
00:15using these lenses. I used a lot of different filters also to give it more celluloid look
00:21to it. We experimented a lot with filters. I like this technical stuff. I have a lot
00:30of fun doing it with my DOP. And we used an Alexa Mini but we also used a DSLR for the
00:38documentary shots.
00:44Fully, he's gone.
00:45What a cinephile.
00:55Sometimes we did enhance in post. Sometimes we had some lights and some streets we
01:02rocked and lit up also. That scene was lit. But for example, when we are walking in Muhammad
01:10Ali road, that is shot more gorilla style. It was not possible. But for example, in the
01:18train, we couldn't have any lights. So it is the light of the train. So we did a lot
01:23of that like mixing things. Whenever they get a chance, then one light will come. But
01:32if they don't have a chance, only then they have to figure out how to do it. And that
01:35is fun like that I think because of our background in documentary filmmaking. We are
01:44forced to work with what we have.
01:50I mean, let's take before Bahu Budi happened. I'm saying when we were much, much younger
01:54and watching movies. There's a Tamil movie called Roja which Manish sir made. It didn't
02:00matter which language it was in. We all watched it. There's a Malayalam film. It's
02:04called Chota Chetan here. It was the first 3D film that I saw. It's a Malayalam film.
02:09I saw it in Telugu. You would have seen it in Hindi. It didn't matter at that point
02:13either which film it was. But then somehow we are all differentiated by industries.
02:18And that's like states are divided by language. That's the normal norm of what it is.
02:24But cinema unites. Art always unites people. It doesn't need a language. Once it's
02:29entertaining, it's entertaining. Then I think before Bahu Budi, I have to give credit to all the
02:35satellite channels that took cinema and started dubbing it for the Hindi audience.
02:42And I think just Bahu Budi came and sat on top of all of that. And it just became acceptable.
02:48I'm saying post that whether it's a big Bahu Budi or a film like Ghazi that I made right after,
02:54Hanuman, Kantara, all the films that are very unique, language didn't matter.
03:00It didn't matter if the filmmaker spoke the language or not. It's the audience that watched it.
03:05Like once story has taken front seat, ultimately you want to experience new things. You want to
03:10watch new stuff. Only in the business back end, we don't know what that means.
03:16So as a creator, you consistently need to find new stories because that's what the audience wants.
03:22But as a businessman, you keep trying to repeat the formula that you wanted to make.
03:29So I just feel like that repeat formula doesn't do the job anymore because now everyone's aware
03:34of everything. Post the pandemic, we've watched content like crazy. Whether it's on OTT, whether
03:40it's in a theater, doesn't matter where it is. We are watching a lot of stuff and our phones buzz
03:45with short content like every one second of our time is just gone there and people are just
03:51telling stories in all kinds. So I just feel like what we don't get to see in cinemas is depth.
03:58Depth of character, depth of emotion, depth of drama which is kind of gone away or it's
04:05there in a superficial much larger underlying kind of way and I felt like as soon as I
04:12saw All We Imagine is I was transported into world that I felt like I kind of knew but
04:17I was just deep into their lives, their problems became mine. I started identifying with myself
04:24like it's just there are too many things that you can connect with and I felt like that's a cinema that
04:29enough of audience haven't seen and once they start seeing it will start enjoying.
04:34Whether you see it like we just did, we didn't know how to get it in the rest of the South India
04:39where people aren't so aware of the Khans or they're not so aware of international film festivals
04:45but how do local people know it. We said let's do a small release in Kerala and see how people get.
04:50So we did a limited release and the day we announced it in two minutes the tickets were sold out.
04:54So you know that there is an audience there but we just have to go and find the right people
05:01and make sure enough people know about the film even before it's out. So I think
05:06and also we don't have a set pattern for independent or alternative films. We have a
05:12set pattern for commercial films. So I think once we just crack that little model I think
05:18you'll have a lot more films.
05:24Well cinema like India is definitely very very underscreen in terms of the number of screens
05:29it has. Now 14,000 is a very large number it's only about 6,000 to 8,000 working screens
05:36that we have. The rest are not diminishing in many many ways out of which to the large part
05:42of it's in Andhra and Telangana, the areas that I live in. But we just feel like
05:48it can be much more screened for the kind of people, number of people that are around.
05:55It would solve that problem but it also it's India's real estate is not as cheap as the rest
06:00of the world because we have less land and many more people unlike America or unlike China which
06:05have much more landmass than us, we can build many more things. So that would change but
06:12but it's like a chicken and egg. So you look at the cinemas now, every festival we are over
06:17food and we feel like there's no space for new films but the rest of the year as exhibitors
06:22we just sit idle because there's no film. So it's that trick that we're following and I just feel like
06:28unless some exhibitors also know that there is more cinema that they can play,
06:32different types of audience that they can reach out to, the different types of marketing
06:38techniques that they can start exploring. So I think all of this will lead to a certain
06:43different types of change.
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