Exclusive | My work should make a difference, awards will follow: Abhinay Deo

The Cannes Lions Festival 2012 was not a very rewarding one for India this year except one award which gave a lot of cheers on the final day. The Mumbai Mirror campaign won a Gold in the Film and Film Craft category which was a first for India. The campaign for Mumbai Mirror, “I am Mumbai”, was entered in the Film Craft category by Ramesh Deo Productions (RDP) and was directed by Abhinay Deo.

 

Adgully spoke with the director whose work brought home the Gold, on various topics, the following is the excerpts of the tete-te-tete. 

 

 

Abhinay Deo (AD): I wanted to disturb people with the campaign and to make them think about the city and the various issues. All that has happened in the city has been covered by Mumbai Mirror at some point of time as news. The basic objective was to have a hard hitting campaign so that people sit up and take notice of the issues. 

 

 

AD: The brief was exactly the same – it should be noticed. That the tabloid, Mumbai Mirror needs to be taken seriously by the people. It was an extremely potent job to try and showcase the incidents that has happened in the city and that is very important.

 

 

AD: Offcourse I am very happy to get Gold in the Film and Film Craft category because it actually means the meeting of the two and not just the idea.  So execution, production design, music, editing, cinematography, direction – everything comes into consideration. After this my plan is to do more work that gets noticed and makes a difference. I am not here to win an award but my work should make an actual difference to the publics, the people and the brand.

 

 

AD: No. Honestly not. The campaign was close to my heart but I was not even thinking of the award.

 

 

AD: Yes the campaign was treated in a very different manner and not like a standard ad film. First no models were acting in it. Second we chose locations in Mumbai which were very difficult to shoot like Flora Fountain, Bandra Station and Peddar Road Bridge. We shot all these locations at prime time when people flock. It was very difficult, we had hidden cameras everywhere and when we shot almost nobody knew where the camera was looking. We managed to get expressions and scene out of people. The challenge was there, in fact a couple of times we had cops running behind us for disrupting the flow. 

 

 

AD: Oh absolutely, there is no doubt about it. Imagine shooting at 7 pm at Peddar Road Bridge when the traffic in the city is the maximum. Everything that you therefore see is real footage. It was a very complicated shoot and very dangerous but that was the whole idea that is not to take any chances so that it comes good. 

 

 

AD: In advertising success can be measured on two parameters. First and foremost the campaign has to work for the brand because it is made for the brand. Second it has to entertain people and make a dent in their minds so that they think of the campaign and the brand whenever they think of that product category.  There is no point if the campaign wins a great award but does not work for the brand, the converse is also equally true - it works for the brand but is not acclaimed then too it is not good. There has to be a good balance between the two. For me a good campaign or a successful campaign is when you just go out and think of the brand’s core idea and be honest about your work. So just go out and do your best of whatever the creative idea is put in front of you. 

 

 

AD: At various points of time I have been influence by many people. I consider Piyush Pandey as my Guru. I started my advertising career under him and he really looked after me and took me up. I am also influenced by Agnello Dias and some of the very good directors whom I look up to. They have been incredible people. 

 

 

AD: I honestly do not know the reasons and there are no thumb rules for winning. Actually there are a lot of things that really come about. One the work has to be exceptionally good universally or internationally. Perhaps in that we have been a little low this year. Honestly it is very difficult to pinpoint one or two particular factors because Cannes is very competitive and it is extremely tough to get one’s work recognized. You are competing with the rest of the world. 

 

 

AD: No I do not think so. The constant pressure of delivering has always been there. I have a different point of view on this. I think that the more you run behind winning at Cannes, the more you will not get it. So what one needs to do is to get one’s job right and try to be as creative as possible in the work that we do. If your work is honest, awards will follow automatically. 

 

 

AD: There are two aspects. One is Indian ad film making is different from the rest of the world and this is taking the world a little time to kind of understand it. We are emotional people and at the end of the day our films are a little more emotional and flamboyant, if I may say so. Also culturally and colours wise we are very different – so there is a lack of understanding about the milieu. From our point of view, out film makers need to learn much more and need to push the boundaries. We will get there; this is the first time we have won in the Film and Film Craft category. So we are getting very close.

 

Off course we have the right talent to win on global stage, there is no doubt about it. There will be a lot of talent in the years to come that will produce winning works. 

 

 

AD: I think where craft is concerned we need to explore a little more and come to terms with a lot more technical stuff. Technically we need to come at par with the west. But the fact that is more important is that when you want to win abroad, the people who are tracking performance need to know a little more about us. They need to know why Indians are the way they are. Then there will be far more understanding. Many a times our work is judged too load and overboard while actually it is not so for the country. So it is both ways, we need to catch up and so do they. 

 

 

AD: We need to go really long back in time. We both are friends for 15 years and I have done some of my best works with him. We both understand each other extremely well. So the cooperation was amazing, it was a team effort. I would say at the end of the day a campaign can never be done in a solitary manner, it is always a teamwork and there are three parties who are involved – the client, the agency and the production house. All the partners have to be in tune with each other and work closely with each other. I share that kind of understanding with the Times of India group and whenever I have done a campaign for them it has turned out to be exceptional. 

 

 

AD: At the moment I am working on the Indian adaption of 24 which is an American series which as famous worldwide. Alongwith Anil Kapoor, I am adopting it to the Indian milieu and probably believe it is going to be the biggest thing on television in near future. I am also working on a couple of film scripts.