Two years ago, 25-year-old Animesh Panwar was fretting over how to cough up next month’s rent for the Andheri flat he shared with three others and even debating whether to return to Ajmer, the hometown he left two years earlier to make it big in the fickle world of entertainment.
The work the aspiring director was getting was “monotonous and mindless” rather than creative. “Going independent was the only other option. And that left me with no work and no money for months,” he recounts.
Cut to 2019. Now 27, Animesh is working on two shows, brings home a decent pay cheque, doesn’t need roomies to split rent and even had to refuse work. “I’ve not slept for more than four hours a night since November 2017!” he says.
Animesh owes his sleepless nights and frenzied days to the brisk rise of over-the-top (OTT) video platforms with their roster of films and season after season of shows, spawning a surge in jobs at all levels of video production.
“Working on one project is like doing three feature films under one contract. I used to dream that one day I’ll be so busy I won’t have time to breathe. It’s come true and how!” Animesh laughs over the phone, after packing up shooting in a remote village near Udaipur.
In recent months, sharp debates have broken out over whether the country is or isn’t creating new jobs. But if there’s one place where the sun is shining, it is India’s binge factory. The best time to be employed in the entertainment industry is perhaps now. Apart from digital giants like Netflix and Amazon, local platforms like Viacom18’s Voot, Sony’s Sony LIV, Star India’s Hotstar, and Balaji Telefilms’ ALT Balaji are jostling for space.
There are also new players such as Shemaroo and the soon-to-launch MX Player from Times Group, the publisher of this newspaper. Already, India has the second largest online video audience, more than Brazil and the US. A KPMG report last September estimated the number at 225 million in 2018, projected to reach 550 million by 2023.
Ashwin Suresh and Anirudh Pandita, founders of digital content creator Pocket Aces, say more writers are getting hired, paid and trained.
“Unlike the daily pressure in tele-serials which left them no time for quality control, these shows allow you ten hours of content, writing for which begins 12 months before the season’s release. It’s raised the quality of what people write,” explain Suresh and Pandita, who set up shop in 2015 with two writers and have around 25 on board now. Experienced writers are also getting a chance to be showrunners, which means helming creative and management duties and outranking even the director.
Sumit Aroraa, who’s been writing for films and TV for the past 13 years and is currently working on a Netflix series, finds the bigger canvas more fulfilling.
“Ideas and characters that I used to struggle to capture within two hours or a fleeting episode, I’m able to delve into and build. As a writer that’s very satisfying. Although creative pressures of a 10-hour drama demands more of your time, payment per episode has increased by 50 to 100%,” says Sumit, now gearing up to direct his first show on Netflix. “Never thought it was possible for a writer to direct someone else’s script, even a year ago. Exciting times, indeed!”
Operations are scaling up all around. “Not just studios but every sublet of the video production industry is popping and growing,” explains Akshay Multani, a digital film producer. “More shoots also mean demand for more equipment and technicians. If previously there were around three or four privately owned light-camera-grips vending companies, 50 such vendors have opened close to the highway from Goregaon to Mira Road which makes it easy for the movement of heavy equipment.”
The only downside is time constraints. Vineet Vashishtha got his big break in 2017 as a location sound recordist for two popular shows on Amazon Prime Video, including one featuring AR Rahman. “It changed the game for me. I’ve worked on three web series and one feature film working 12-hour shifts over six months across the country,” he smiles. He also got married around the same time. “I’ve not had any time with my wife. It makes me happy as well as sad!”
Workload seems to have “increased considerably” for music makers too. Venturing beyond scoring for ads and films with a new show on Amazon, composer Mikey McCleary says he discovered and used a whole new bunch of indie singers. “I spent 90 days creating eight hours of music and that’s double the amount of work that I’d have otherwise done in a year. But it is creatively satisfying,” says McCleary, who’s moved into a larger studio and is hiring composers for multiple projects.
However, some veterans complain about the tight budgets of OTT platforms. Fashion designer Rima Melwani, for instance, refused four web series in the past year. “The money offered was 40% less than what I demand. I cannot risk my reputation or quality of costumes and designs on a low budget.” Taking the place of these senior designers are stylists — Rima calls them “smart shoppers” — who often work as assistants to a senior designer, and are able to “source, rent or borrow costumes for cheap.”
Meet the architect who is now designing sets
Architecture and filmmaking may seem like strange bedfellows but Aishwarya Shetty has managed to blur the lines. It’s been two years since she graduated as an architect and armed with a short stint in an architecture firm, a few ad gigs and plenty of design skills, Aishwarya has already landed herself the job of an assistant set designer for a show on one of the best video-on-demand services.
“The first job you get as an architect is of a draftsman. You start with an average pay of Rs 10,000 a month, growth is slow and for me it got monotonous,” says the 24-year-old who sees her new found role as more a specialization than abandonment of architecture. “They were looking for someone good with sketching the director’s vision of a set and being an architect I was at an advantage.”
It also meant 14 hours of prep work and 18 hours of commitment during a shoot for six months. “There were days when our team would sleep and wake up in the same room but no complaints! The pressure to work under extreme conditions, late nights and with unfamiliar people mattered. I feel like I’ve upgraded myself. Money wise, too, since I earned around Rs 40,000 a month on my first big project,” she says, adding that most of the others in her team too came with a background in fine arts, graphic design and architecture.
Businessman to accidental actor
Forty-two-year-old Chennai businessman Prasanna Rajagopalan – much to his wife’s ire – has decided not to colour his hair. After all, says the 42-year-old founder of Adap Ventures, it’s landing him acting roles. “It looks like my silver has helped me strike gold,” says Prasanna, whose luck changed after he bumped into his former classmate and ad filmmaker Balaji Prasad at a reunion. Prasad found him perfect for the role of head doctor in a forthcoming web series.
With the proliferation of web series, and most of them with limited budgets, there is a demand for new faces, different faces. “When you go through industry sources or model coordinators, you get the same look, the perfect faces and physiques. I want people who break that norm,” says Prasad. “Also, web series is new territory, budgets are not high. This is the time for new faces,” he says.
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