Tanujaa V Mehra, a talent manager who has clients like Tabu, Himansh Kohli, and Tusshar Kapoor, to name a few, feels that with the onset of OTT platforms, and various new and unexplored genres, the actors today get a plethora of options to choose from. She stressed that this results in the audience witnessing much more than the usual song and dance that were shown earlier.
Sharing her views on the changes she has witnessed in the industry over the years, she said, “Having been here for almost a quarter of a century I have seen the transformation take place over the years. At earlier times the films were made with a different equation. The producer or director would take the films to the topmost people on their list or in their circle and on the basis of goodwill, the films were signed. Certain successful formulas were replicated in the set genres again and again limiting the storytelling between romance, action, dance, songs, and drama. While today the process of cinema making has changed and so is the medium and the audience.”
“Today, content is the king and the artiste gets a wider range of genres, roles, characters, and platforms to show their talent. Also today the managers and agents have a say in the decision making unlike the secretaries earlier who only managed the artiste’s dates. Especially now the pandemic has opened up such avenues through the OTT that the makers are having a literal cinematic boom exploring all kinds of genres, storytelling, and authentic artiste because the audience is now open and in allowance to witness the magic of content over the earlier song dance drama only,” she added.
The year 2020 was tough for everyone more so for the entertainment industry. While the shooting of a lot of films was stopped midway, many films have still not gone on floors and are way behind their schedule, not just that even theatres were shut and a lot of movies chose to release on OTT platforms. But people are slowly coming out of the fear zone, and she feels the sooner people get used to the new normal the better it would be. As for the movies releasing in theatres, she feels it would require a big budget and a big star movie for the audience to come back to the cinema halls.
Sharing her views Tanujaa said, “The fact that today OTT platforms have kept people safe at home providing them entertainment and much larger content at the fingertips, is going to keep them home longer. Not so much because of the safety issues but more so because of the monetary viability of watching it at home or on phone as opposed to the theatre. The cinema is being made again and maybe not yet full-fledged way but at least 80% projects are on-floor.”
“Today the options to feature them on OTT over the theatres seems to be more logical. It’s not that theatres will not see the boom again but I know that a big, grand movie will surely be required to bring the audience to the theatre to spend the larger amounts of monies and experience the grandeur on large screens,” she concluded.
