The Streaming Revolution - Is regional the new global?
The 4th edition of SCREENXX Summit & Awards 2022 turned the focus on the growth of regional content on OTT platforms and how it is ushering in a new level of growth in this space. Dedicated to the world of entertainment, SCREENXX, the premier event from Adgully, straddles digital entertainment comprising OTT, connected TV, as well as the film and television industry. After two years of being held in the virtual platform, this year’s event was a hybrid one, held over two days. Day one on November 17 was a virtual event, while Day 2 on November 18 was held in the physical form in Mumbai.
The panel discussion on ‘The Streaming Revolution - Is regional the new global?’ was moderated by Sonal Dabral, Writer, Director and Creative Consultant, while the panelists included:
Aparna Purohit, Head of India Originals, Prime Video, India
Pushkar and Gayatri, Writers, Directors and Producers
Andrew Louis, Writer and Director
SJ Suryah, Noted Actor and Filmmaker
Sonal Dabral started by asking Aparna Purohit about her thoughts on regional as the new global, as well as the strategy for creating regional original content.
Aparna Purohit felt that calling anything regional may not be the right thing. “I think what we create are really local and authentic stories. Stories that are truly rooted. Stories that can bring the soil and smell of the region. And I believe the more local you are, the more global you are. We create Tamil stories. We created ‘Sooral’ with Pushkar, Gayatri; ‘Vadhandhi’ with Andrew, it is primarily for the Tamil audiences. Much like we create French originals for our French audiences, or German originals for our German audiences, but the beauty of streaming is that it can go to audiences in 240+ countries, territories, day and date, and the opportunity for the audiences to enjoy that content in the language that they can follow it in. I think that has helped really transcend all barriers, ethnicity, region, language, religion, and it’s the good characters, the good stories that stay with the audiences. Also, the most interesting thing that has happened in the last couple of years is that the linguistic palette of the audiences has expanded. I can say that more than 50% of our audiences, are watching content today in more than four languages which is incredible. So, today somebody sitting in Punjab is enjoying content in Malayalam, Tamil, people sitting in Mumbai are enjoying content from everywhere, from across the world, that is the most amazing thing that has happened. And that for us, increases and expands the addressable market. So. I really feel its local that is the global.”
Dabral remarked, “My personal experience with ‘Sooral’ was that I was a bit wary, because I had never watched a Tamil series, though I have watched films. But once I started watching it, I was absolutely hooked, I just could not stop binge watching it. I told myself that it’s so good that I should savour it over a few days. All these platforms have opened up opportunities for serious filmmakers who want to tell different kinds of stories in a different way.”
Pushkar said “Long form has always been very exciting for us since the days of ‘The Wire’ and ‘Sopranos’ – I think those two shows defined what long form storytelling is about. But again if you remember from those days, trying to see one episode of ‘The Wire’ and then waiting a week for the next episode to come and then waiting another week, it was a huge commitment, so even at that point we thought ‘How I wish we could watch all the episodes together?’, and the only way to do it is wait for a year till the Blue Ray DVD came out and then you watch all the episodes together. It is what we did for a lot of shows that came out in the late 90s, early 2000s, so what streaming has done for storytellers, what Amazon Prime video has done for us is that it gives us the option of watching two episodes now, two episodes later. It is putting the power in the audiences’ hand to see how much you want to ingest at that one given point of time. As soon as you put the power in the hands of the audiences, we are making them co-creators. This is an idea that we strongly believe in that the filmmakers are part of the creation process.”
Gayatri added here, “Long form storytelling is a huge opportunity and a huge liberating process as writers and filmmakers. Another big takeaway from working with a streaming platform such as Amazon is that we are here as producers, so we are super excited about our show, which is launching in December 2 on Amazon. So, the way the story is written, the way it is constructed, it reverses what has happened and everything will be challenged. And for mindbending twists and turns, the scope for it is there. If you are doing a 2-hour feature, you cannot really explore so many characters, the world. We are living in extremely exciting times as storytellers, producers, filmmakers and actors.”
Speaking about the earlier times of the 1980s and 1990s, SJ Suryah pointed out that those days there were great sagas like ‘Ramayan’ and ‘Mahabharat’, there were a lot of pages, it was like a book. Now, if it is on the silver screen, its just 120 pages, because per page is one minute. They say that it should not be more than 120 pages, because in 120 pages, one minute per page is 2 hours, then four songs and a fight, another 20 minutes; so you target 220, and you end up with 240, after final trimming it will remain 230. Therefore, you have to stick to that 120 page scripting.”
Suryah further added, “Localisation is the key to global. Whatever it is, you concentrate on emotions, then it will connect with the entire world. You feel sorry for things, you feel greedy about things. I feel happy to be a part of ‘Vadhandhi’.”
Speaking more on ‘Vadhandhi’, Andrew Louis said, “‘Vadhandhi’ has been staying with me for a very long time. From 2015 with the germination of the idea in my mind, it slowly evolved – for me the question was What is a crime?, What is justice? The most dangerous weapon in life, I feel, is the human tongue. That’s what ‘Vadhandhi’ is all about. The story is about how perceptions can kill someone, completely damage their life, their happiness and everything, so somewhere by the end of the series, I feel everybody will be able to question themselves if they are committing a crime in any form, without their knowledge.”
These are edited excerpts. For the complete discussion, please watch below:
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