Shooting to fame

And the experiment is racing ahead. Shooting locations range from Jodhpur to Mumbai to may be even Russia. Love You Hamesha, as the name signifies, is a love story. The cast includes Akshaye Khanna, Sonali Bendre, along with two newcomers — Ria Sen and Amitabh Nanda. While the sets are being designed by Bijon Das Gupta, the cinematographer is R M Rao. The production team for his ad films are carried on to his feature film unit.

Kailash uses a typical strategy for time management. "I have kept aside 10 days in a month for my feature film. The other 20 are for my ad films. This not only gives me the dates of the artists and technicians comfortably, but also gives me enough time to make ad films, which is my first love." How does he maintain continuity of the film then? "After I finish with my processing I go for a telecine which enables me to edit the film on the D-Vision machine. Thus, I have a constant reference of the shots taken and sequences edited. This style of work also helps me in planning out the shots I need much in advance, which in turn, saves not only time but raw material too. I plan to complete the film in 100 days over the year, which should be ready by December,"he adds.

Around the same time, even Mukul Anand plans to finish his new venture. But his work schedule spreads over five months from July to November. Mukul Anand is not a new name in the world of feature films. But what does create waves is that he is the first film-maker to have made both the Coke and the Pepsi commercial, in the same year. While his expertise in film-making came through in Trimurti and Khuda Gawah, they did not have, "My complete thinking," he insists.

His new venture Dus, a symbol in itself, deals with India at large.

"Although laden with political under currents, I plan to work on it as an entertainer," says Mukul. He feels that being an ad film-maker, having made at least 135 ad films, his feature film would definitely be a prototype. It is to be released in four languages — Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and English. The cast of Dus includes Raveena Tandon, Shilpa Shetty, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. Not being firmly entrenched in Bollywood also gives these young directors more freedom to experiment. For Dus, Mukul plans to use different music directors for his 11 tracks. Already signed on are Sandip Chowta from Bangalore and the team of Shanker Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. Locations will also be as varied. Most of the film is to be shot in Brice in Grand Canyon and in the Salt Lake City in Utah, as well as Ranikhet and Mumbai. This Rs 12 crore film has Vikas Sivaraman as the cinematographer. As most of the technical team comes from the ad film industry, so do the screenplay writers — Prasoon Pandey, famous for his award-winning Ericsson film and Piyush Pandey, the creative director of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising. The Pandey brothers with Sonal Dabral, creative director O&M, also happen to be the screenplay writers for Love You Hamesha.

At almost the same time, another ad film-maker to venture into the big screen is Shantanu Sheorey. Known for his Thums Up commercials, Shantanu now goes on to make the Indian version of the comedy Mrs Doubtfire. Called Chikni Chachi, it has Kamal Hassan playing the lead.

According to the grapevine, the latest ad film-maker to turn to cine is John Matthew Mathan. He has been making ad films since 1980. About 500 ad films later, he goes back to the medium he started with. He had started his career assisting Govind Nihalani in Aakrosh. Mathan plans to direct a thriller. And the untitled film has stars like Aamir Khan, Sonali Bendre and Naseeruddin Shah.

"In terms of technology, ad films are much more experimental. Every time an expression is required, it needs to be held for a maximum of five to 10 seconds. Whereas, a feature is more of an artist’s medium, where the scale is so big that experimentation becomes impossible," adds Mathan. Most of his unit too, comes from the ad world. The cinematographer again is Vikas Sivaraman and the editing is being done on the Avid a machine that is a favourite with ad film-makers — simultaneously with the shoot.

But there are a few negatives as well. "I land up using more and more raw stock, taking OK shots and safety OK shots, instead of being happy with just what I have shot once already," says Mathan.

And the exodus continues. Earlier feature film makers shifted to ad films in between their regular work. Today, the tables have turned, and the ad film-makers have found a bigger medium to express themselves.