Trends in the OTT and cellolied world came up for a freewill discussion as celebrities like Abhishek Chaubey and Mohit Raina joined the discussion at India News Munch 2023 organised by ITV Network. Director Abhishek Chaubey has shared his experience of how he made his name in the Bollywood industry despite coming from a non-filmy background.
He shared his experience regarding his upcoming web series Killer Soup, starring Manoj Bajpai and Konkana Sen Sharma, which is slated to stream on January 11 on Netflix. He also shared his experience of collaborating with Netflix. “I have connected with Netflix for the last four years, as I am impressed with the functioning of the platform that provides a variety of content for the consumer under a single window.”
He also highlighted the story of Udata, Punjab. He said, “When we visited Punjab for the story idea and what we felt there, that made us realise how important the idea was, and now it is our responsibility to make a social movie on the idea instead of a typical Bollywood movie.”
Telling more about the story of ‘Killer Soup’, he said, it is the story of a couple (husband and wife) who wanted to open a restaurant and aimed to make world-famous Pia Soup. The story also highlights the bond between the couple and his family.
Furthermore, when talking about the star cast of the series, he states that Manoj Bajpai and Konkana Sen Sharma are world-famous actors. He said they prepared their work before coming to sets, which shows their intention to give 100, which makes it easier for me to work with such legendary actors who set the tone of the acting in the right way. They also keep the environment cool in the sets, and with them, there is always a chance of improvisation in the work.
He further discusses the difference between movies and web series and says, “A movie has a 100-page story, which makes it easier to recall that scenes come after one another, while in a web series, a story has more than 400 pages, and it’s difficult to recall which scenes come after one another.”
Chaubey also shared his personal experience of how he came into Bollywood. He said that when I was 16 years old, I decided to become a filmmaker, but it was difficult for me as I came from a non-filmy background, so I took baby steps towards my dreams, and in that process, I came across ‘Vishal Bharadwaj’ who pushed me to write the story before directing a film, so I started to write films like Omkara and Kaminey.
Similarly, Mohit Raina, a famous TV actor, also shared his journey of becoming an actor from nowhere. He said he had taken baby steps from Jammu to Mumbai to start his career in Bollywood. He mentioned that “at the start of my career, I worked as a model, but soon I realised that it was not for me, so I started giving auditions for TV and big screens.”
Telling further about his journey, he said, “The day I got the chance to work at Devo K Dev Mahadev, that changed my journey, but on the same day I lost my father, which was a tragic moment in my life. I think it was a gift for me from my father for my future.
He also shared his experience of working in his upcoming series ‘Freelancer’ in which he worked as an agent who went on a rescue mission in a different country. He further highlighted the story and said the first four episodes of the series established the story, and the last four episodes concluded the entire story, which is directed by Neeraj Pandey.
Raina said, “I got inspired by the work of ‘Anpam Kheer’, who is a tremendous actor, and I learned a lot from him while working with him as a freelancer.”
Raina also pointed out the change in the trend where a large number of audiences like to stream OTT (over the top), which caters to a lot of opportunities for every individual who dreams of working in this industry.
He further said that good content always gets praised by the audience, irrespective of the medium, as they are the only king of our industry. If the audience likes the movie, it will eventually do well at the box office, and if they don’t like the content, the movie will flop.
