A compelling picture

A leading production house talks about its interests in documentaries, drama, fiction, kids' space and more.

When Miditech-produced film Super Cyclones was shown on National Geographic Channel last Saturday, it showcased the manner in which scientists around the world were experimenting to predict cyclones in advance.

Chasing cyclones along the Indian coast, Australia and the US Air Force base in Guam, this film, directed by Animitra Chakravarty, also provides footage of never-seen-before devastation along with first-person accounts to study the Super Cyclone of 1999, one of the worst storms in the recorded history of India.

Miditech has had a long lasting relationship with documentaries, and according to the company's vice-president (documentaries), Pria Somiah, "Miditech has consistently held on to that (documentary) space."

She adds, "We try and work on as many different genres as possible and that's why we are the largest producers of documentaries in India."

While usually a good quality documentary production can cost approximately Rs 88 lakh onwards at Miditech (where invariably the projects are commissioned), it takes a year to produce documentaries.

"One needs a lot of time to research on documentaries. For Super Cyclones, for instance, we had to wait for nearly six months for clearances from the concerned authorities, the film's production took almost one-and-a-half years," adds Somiah, who is also involved in the company's growing kids' channel space.

But has India grown to respect documentary space? Somiah, who witnessed the World History Producers Conference Congress (a pre-eminent international event for broadcasters, content creators, producers and other industry stakeholders in history and biography television) in London recently, which even had a special Indian session in the documentaries genre, feels that global docu-space still needs to open up to include Indian history.

"While the market is changing to include products that work globally (Super Cyclones, for instance), I think Indian history is still ignored," she says.

Currently, with its strong science strand, Miditech will also bring Chasing Earthquakes, another documentary on mid-air collisions and Grinding Halt, a film that focuses its attention once again on the unforgettable story of the Mumbai floods.

While Somiah is tightlipped about the company's forthcoming plans with Turner in the children's space, she says that commissioning of projects is much faster in this space than the documentary space.

"It is a growing market and we certainly have big plans to grow in the children's space," she says. And while the company's animation division is all set to grow, Miditech is also expanding in the regional space with programmes like a Kannada version of reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.

The company also has its hands full with more documentaries, regional and kids' programmes, and is also getting ready with Indian Idol 3 (March 2007), Cricket Star and Extreme Makeovers.