How Anupama Chopra is creating the Avengers of film journalists

We, at Adgully, have always saluted and honoured women managers and leaders across diverse fields. W-SUITE is a special initiative from Adgully that has been turning the spotlight on some of the most remarkable women achievers in the M&E, Advertising, Marketing, PR and Communications industry. In the refurbished series, we seek to find out how women leaders have been managing their teams and work as well as how they have been navigating through the toughest and most challenging times brought about by the global pandemic.

In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Anupama Chopra, Founder, Film Companion, which is a daily source for LIVE Box Office News, Reviews, Interviews, Features from Bollywood, South, Hollywood and more, speaks about her journey being an entrepreneur and how she created a business out of content and was able to scale it, growing diversity in leadership positions, how organisations can effectively encourage and groom women leaders, and more.

What sparked your vision to create Film Companion? Was there a specific moment or experience that inspired this journey?

The idea for Film Companion sparked when the contract for my show, called ‘The Front Row’, on Star World which ran for almost 2 years expired. This made me think – what do we do next? At that moment my husband told me that reviews should not be appointment viewing on television, but a means that should be available 24/7 regardless of whenever someone wants to watch a film and can read/ view an opinionated piece about what we as Film Companion have to say about it. We at Film Companion first started as a video review channel on YouTube as production was one of our unique talents due to prior experience with Star World and the website came much later in the year.

All I can say is that I as an entrepreneur started with no experience with YouTube, but learned as we grew stronger every day. With our learnings, our vision expanded for Film Companion to become a one-stop entertainment journalism destination – catering to all formats of content consumption available on the internet such as long and short format video, written pieces on the website, social media channels while at the same time bringing to the forefront unique, varied and talented voices across all forms of content we wanted to serve. Basically, create the Avengers of film journalists, a platform that provides the best film writing, best film interviews, etc.

This journey has been far more challenging than I had imagined, but the mission was always to make it the Tiffany’s of entertainment journalism with the golden hallmarks of credibility, integrity, knowledge, and information all given in a power-packed entertaining way.

Entrepreneurship often involves overcoming obstacles. What were some of the major hurdles you encountered along the way, and how did you tackle them?

Entrepreneurship is a never-ending journey and as we will celebrate 10 years of Film Companion this July, I have realised there is no day I don’t feel I am pushing the wrong uphill. We grew from a 5-member team in 2014 to a 60+ member team to date with a thriving Film Companion South arm which is a full-functioning editorial ecosystem of entertainment journalism in itself. Over time I have understood how things have evolved and become complex in the digital publishing ecosystem… from the zeitgeist of audience consumption patterns to the evolution of the digital platforms, as digital publishers we needed to stay ahead of the curve. Things such as requiring a YouTube channel manager who is constantly looking at optimising the channel and numbers, using different formats of content IPs to experiment with for understanding audience content needs, scaling up our production value, finding unique value propositions like the FC Front Row, which helps break the clutter in the sea of content were only some of the things we had to keep working towards.

When I first started, I always went ahead with my gut, that this is the journalism and stories that I care about, which was my driving force for reaching out to artists and people that I care about and thought would add value to Film Companion. One of the biggest hurdles is how you retain quality in a digital business first and is completely shaped by numbers and questions like what the watch time is, how much the interview travels, how many hits you have, did it travel on Instagram, Twitter, etc. The only way to tackle these thoughts and insecurities is you have to keep reminding yourself that quality will eventually lead to numbers.

It is important to always remember that even if it doesn’t hit a million or even a lakh, it was an important conversation, and how it has been forever registered in the history of Indian cinema - recording time. Ultimately, my Film Companion team has always made me believe in us. And this belief is ratified where only in the last year we have seen 600% growth of readership on our website, 300% growth on YouTube, and 200% growth on our social media platforms.

What is your mantra for maintaining a successful work-life balance in the new normal? According to you, what makes women the best in crisis management?

Truthfully, I have no mantra for maintaining a successful work-life balance. I start work at 6:30 am in the morning and sometimes it goes beyond 9:00 pm at night, because I am obsessed with my work and Film Companion along with other roles of responsibility like the Festival Director at Jio Mami and Chair of Film Critics Guild. Luckily as my children are older, I have much more time for myself and I surely love to spend all of it on work, but family always comes first for me.

Gender sensitivity and inclusion in the new normal – how can organisations effectively encourage and groom women leaders in challenging times?

Here’s an interesting and strange fact about Film Companion - all our HODs here are women, except for one, and this was never deliberately planned. I was recently told a hilarious thing about hiring a man next to show that we don’t practice sexism here. I think women are amazing because of the level of commitment and efficiency they have and I am more than grateful for this fabulous team. I think it is important for women to reach out to other women and empower them, my code is to get the best people you can and give them the freedom to bring what they do best to the table. Finally, I have learned with my 10 years of experience in Film Companion that if they shine, you shine because no one can do it alone, and having smart people around you make you smarter.

It is well understood that women have to juggle many roles simultaneously – being a daughter, a wife, a mother, as well as working individuals. To you, what has been the most important and most difficult role?

All my life I have juggled all these roles of being a daughter, a wife, a mother, and an editor. To answer this question, I would like to share this nugget of wisdom that I will never forget from Tina Brown, the editor-in-chief of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, when I asked her this question about parenting, work-life balance, etc., which women always get asked. She told me some days you’re good mom, some days you’re a great editor, some days you’re a good wife – you don’t have to be all those things in a day.

I don’t feel one role is more difficult than the other, it just depends on the day and that particular time today as a critic my day can be tough, tomorrow I may be struggling with trying to help my kids and another day I might be trying to find time to have a good meal with my husband and I think that’s what women do we are multitaskers. I will never forget as I was on the sets of ‘A Mighty Heart’ and I was interviewing Angelia Jolie when she was having her lunch, so I asked if I should stop. She told me, “No, I am a mother, all mothers multitask.”

Looking back at your journey, what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially women aiming to establish businesses?

All I would like to say is to be a student, if I could do it all over again, I would do a deep dive plan for my business into the world of digital publishing, and learn about the ecosystem. Also, be smart about your money and never be afraid of asking questions. I remember going to Harsh Jain, the head of Dream11, with a notepad asking him to help me and he would never say no and that’s his generosity. In my 30-year career in journalism, I have been a student. I have never been hesitant to ask for help and that’s what makes it so magical, because you never know what you’ll do today.