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Throw some light on your upcoming movie Kaanchi and its marketing plans?
We are bringing in Auro 3D 11.1 sound for the first time in the Hindi film industry with Kaanchi. The Auro sound system is like having 40 speakers in a theatre. I have always been tech-savvy. With sound reproduction closest to natural hearing, Auro 3D 11.1 aims at giving the audience immersive experience.
Every picture brings its own format of marketing. The marketing differs with the starcast, story idea, amongst other things. If the movie is already in the media spotlight, then you do not have to spend money. Kaanchi is a typical Subhash Ghai film with big frames, larger than life characters, drama and good music.
There are certain retrostyle as well as modern style and a rap song as well. It is the story of a young girl Kaanchi with a rural intelligence and rural feelings, emotions, convictions, walk, talk, language and understanding of the world and how she faces the biggest uncrowned king alone.
How she tackles the biggest political and money power alone and how she dethrones them is the amazing story of Kaanchi. This is a very Indian movie for the Indian girl the Indian youth and sending some beautiful message
The timing of the release is coinciding with general elections. Was that planned?
Indian movie goers are quite loyal to their favorite stars, directors or a particular film. So they will go to elections cast their vote and immediately go to the theatre to watch the movie.
We planned the release in March but because we adopted Auro sound I had to postpone the release date to 25th April. At that time, I did not know about the election dates but I do not think these elections will make any difference to our film.
Your association with the letter M continues, given that you are launching newcomer Mishti in Kaanchi
It is just a matter of coincidence that her name is Mishti. Otherwise I would have kept Kareena's name as Mareena or Katrina's name as Matrina of Esha as Mesha. No I am not fascinated with these things. But it just happens that I end up working with the girls having name beginning with M.
Moving on to some industry wide issues, what is holding back investments in Indian film industries?
If you look at the whole business model, the percentage of profit is not as alluring as it looks. For instance, a film earns Rs 100 crore at the box office. Out of that, Rs 50 crore is taken by the exhibitors, Rs 25 crore goes to the distributors and there will be a 30% tax on the remaining 25 crore. The producer gets about 8-10%. His cost of production varies from 12-15%. That needs to change.
What can change this, according to you?
We are making too many movies and we do not have talent. The human capital is not there. We make for instance 300 movies in a year, but do we have 300 good directors? We have 10 good directors but we are making 300 movies. Industry needs more number of educated and trained talent.
According to you, what are the key measures the industry needs?
I think we should have a separate ministry of Cinema, because outsider IAS comes to handle this industry like a corporate and may not understand the business. Film industry should not be part of ministry of information and broadcasting.
Also, we must open more number of film schools. Education in cinema is extremely important. We should introduce media and cinema studies in schools. Whistling woods has already designed the CBSC courses. They should give all incentives and freedom to such schools.
Which production model is the best according to you?
Yash Raj Films (YRF) is the best production house in India. They are creative, business-minded, good organisers and they are not in a hurry. They design the whole production house, the distribution, the studios. YRF is the only running corporate company in our industry.
