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After
redefining home entertainment, Moser Baer
took to film production in 2008 actively.
With their recently released Poo receiving
critical and commercial acclaim, the company’s
Dhananjeyan is on cloud nine. Here,
on a freewheeling chat with Behindwoods,
he opens up on why Moser Baer’s is
not a company that only focuses on profit,
what went wrong in their association with
Prakash Raj and why they are not yet ready
to work with established actors. |
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"We
are not ready for Marmayogi yet."
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BW:We hear you are taking up Kamal’s
Marmayogi. Any comments?
Dhananjeyan:
It’s a baseless rumor. We have no immediate
plans to take up such big projects. Our plans
are to produce medium-budget movies as a next
step in the near future and hence I would say
that we, as a company, are not prepared to engage
in big projects. Taking up Marmayogi would be
a big step but unfortunately we are not ready
for it yet.
On Bharathiraja’s
comments about corporate film houses being predatory
crocodiles.
I
do not want to comment anything on that since
Bharathiraja is a noted director and I have no
say about his opinions. I saw his Bommalattam
and loved the film. However, he did not approach
us with any proposal and our business policies
do not permit to buy already produced films on
first copy basis. We produce movies from the scratch
and hence this question holds no water. So Bharathiraja’s
opinion is necessarily targeted at other production
houses. Since he has not associated with us so
far, he wouldn’t be aware as to how Moser
Baer functions. |
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Why has Moser Baer not associated with established
actors like Vijay and Ajith?
Our
productions are purely script based and
we approach actors only after finalizing
the script. If the script demands an established
actor, we have no qualms in roping them
in. Unfortunately we don’t buy out
dates of actors and then set out for script
hunting. We work the other way around. Besides,
we have very good rapport with all the top
actors of the industry so we have no apprehensiveness
in working with them.
The fallout
between Moser and Prakash Raj while producing
Abhiyum Naanum?
We
have had no conflicts. Earlier, we had entered
into an agreement with Prakash Raj for producing
three movies – Vellithirai, Abhiyum
Naanum and Mayil. While we co-produced Vellithirai,
Prakash Raj acquired the rights from us
and released the movie on his own. And with
regard to Abhiyum Naanum, he wanted to pump
in more investment into the movie that the
agreed budget for enhancing the movie’s
presentation. That’s when we had to
pull out of the project and it happened
in a professional manner. I am happy to
note that Abhiyum Naanum is doing well at
the box office. Our relationship with Prakash
Raj is still cordial. |
"Violence
is the
sure-shot
ticket
to
success."
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Tell us how you came to be involved in cinema?
As
a child, my mother used to take me to a lot of
movies. And my interest in movies only grew since
then. Even now I watch about four movies a week
and I have the largest collection of DVDs in English,
Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi. I’m very passionate
about movies in these languages. I hail from the
Tamil Nadu – Andhra border since I can understand
Telugu, I also watch Telugu movies.
I learn something from each movie I watch. Above
all, I enjoy the creative presentation and the
message each movie tries to deliver and the movie
maker’s passion. I am also passionate about
books. My association with cinema started before
15 years. I became the GM of Sa Re Ga Ma Entertainment
and we released a lot of movie audios including
Alaipayuthey and Rhythm. That’s how I came
to be involved in movies and I enjoyed doing it.
That’s when Moser Baer approached me and
I was more than willing to take up the job since
it enables my association with cinema more than
audio releases did. It gives me a larger picture
of movie making my journey in the past three years
with Moser Baer has been a tremendous experience.
On
Moser Baer’s unusual philosophy of seeing
filmmaking not as business but as a creative process.
In the end, cinema is business. We are here to
make commercially viable, good cinema. All it
needs is involvement in movie making. My philosophy
in movie making is simple – get involved
in whatever project you take up. I involve myself
passionately in movies that we produce –
a point that my mentor insists. That philosophy
works with me and I consider myself as an assistant
director on the sets.
I also provide creative inputs during film making;
however I do not hinder the thought process of
creative people on the sets, especially the director.
I am proud to say that I’m a creative producer.
Although film making is a team effort I will take
the sole responsibility for failures, if any,
of movies produced by me since I was also actively
involved during the direction of the movie and
I was responsible for accepting the script. |
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"We
have
no
conflicts
with
Prakash
Raj."
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What
is your opinion about multi-crore projects
in Tamil cinema?
Tamil
cinema has a limited market and such high-risk
projects could end up not making money,
in my opinion. Of course, this differs in
case of superstar movies – for instance
Rajini and Kamal movies will have a different
reach than other movies. We don’t
have international reach and there is limited
competition for satellite rights among channels
as well which makes it even more risky.
A 50 crore investment for a Tamil movie
is not viable, I would say.
Do
you have any plans to produce movies that
are realistic and commercial?
We
do not want to be typecast into the realism
genre and we are not a company that produces
only art-house movies. However, our upcoming
venture Aval Peyar Tamilarasi is a movie
about an ordinary man whose life is tossed
over because of his momentary mistake. We
want to break free from that image. Our
next step is to produce logical, commercial
and entertaining movies. |
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Has the economic recession messed with your plans
too?
Nobody
is left unruffled in the economic recession. Our
company is not an exception. But we have decided
on judicial investments and although I agree that
the fund flow is tight we have sufficient funds
to keep our projects going.
About awards for Poo
We
are very glad that both our stand-alone production
ventures Raaman Thediya Seethai and Poo brought
in accolades. We recently received an award from
Jaya TV for best production company. I strongly
believe that the award was bestowed upon us for
producing quality movies. We were also awarded
by the MGR – Sivaji academy and Makkal TV
– a channel that so far refrained from anything
related to movies. Poo will be the first movie
to be awarded by Makkal TV. We screened Poo in
the Chennai Film Festival recently with sub-titles
and received appreciation through phone calls
and mails.
We are sending Poo for six film festivals including
IIFF at LA in March and then to Cannes Film Festival
and Toronto Film Festival. We have edited the
movie to 105 minutes to make its presentation
crisp. We strongly believe that the movie will
showcase the Tamil culture honestly.
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How did Moser Baer come to produce a heroine-centric
film like Poo?
I’m a die-hard fanatic of Tamil cinema
– if there were 5000 movies released
in Tamil till date, I would’ve watched
2000 of them. Not to mention, I have enjoyed
all sorts of Tamil movies. So when it came
to production I had a few scripts and was
contemplating on one of those until Sashi
narrated me a script. That was a commercial
script and when he felt that I was not pleased,
he offered to narrate another story which
he mentioned was his dream project –
a story he was nursing within himself for
12 years. He took two hours to finish his
narration and when he was done I was moved
to tears.
I decided that I would produce the movie
right then. The script was moving and I
felt it will touch the right chord. I had
no doubt about its reception since Tamil
industry and audience have always been supportive
of good movies, like Kaadal, Veyil and Subramaniyapuram
in recent times. However, I was also apprehensive
about its subject being accepted by a wide
range of audience since it was so heroine-centric.
I wanted the movie to be enjoyed by all
sections of the society and hence we worked
on the script to season it with other commercial
ingredients and thus Poo happened.
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"We
are not
a
company that
produces
only
art-house
movies."
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The ending is subtle and complex - how did you
and director Sasi arrive at that?
This is a debatable topic and I and Sashi had
hour long discussions in this regard before arriving
at the ending. If you noticed, the lead girl never
cries throughout the movie. But in the end, despite
her sacrifices, she finds out that her cousin
is not happy. She finds her dreams shattered in
front of her eyes. An emotional outbreak is hence
only human and affects the viewer more so since
she is portrayed to be a strong woman throughout.
Although few felt that the ending was incomplete,
I received loads of positive feedback favoring
the ending. Besides, we also had plans for a title
card in the climax explaining the plight of the
girl. But Sashi and others felt it unnecessary
and to maintain subtlety, we decided not to go
ahead with it.
The
details in the film are very accurate and true.
How did you prepare for this?
The movie is the result of 18 months of hard work,
which means extensive research has gone into the
making. I allowed plenty of time for pre-production
works allowing Sashi to form a team and do research.
Sashi told me about his plans of employing first-timers
starting from camera man, art director and heroine
so he need not worry about the time it takes for
research since he wanted the movie to be well-researched.
The script was only 70% developed when we started
pre-production. We evolved it during discussions
and made changes in the script and dialogues.
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"Our
movies will
have only
justifiable
violence!"
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We did not have a clear-cut idea about the
location preferences. All we knew was that
the movie should be in one of the localities
of Rajapalayam or Thenkasi that has firework
industries. And Sashi was not familiar with
the area; he hails from Salem and was raised
in Chennai.
So he and the cameraman decided to stay
on in one of those places. Their extensive
research went for 6 months and Sashi practically
lived in a hut to observe every single aspect
of the livelihood of the village people.
He rode around in a bike and I was very
apprehensive about it. I did not want him
to fall sick during the process and hence
was in touch with him everyday inquiring
about his health.
We targeted the nativity of the villagers
more than authenticity to deliver a realistic
movie, we had the passion to make a very
original Tamil village movie about a selfless
young girl. The movie had very minimal sets
– only in songs. The rest of the movie
is shot with real people in their real dwelling.
Shooting of the movie took 90 days to finish
for this reason.
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On the dominance of violence in Tamil movies.
These
days, violence seems to be the sure-shot ticket
to success. I think it’s largely because
our audience associate the hero with someone valiant
who is capable of fighting for justice single-handedly.
That is Tamil cinema for the most part. I think
nobody can be blamed for that since such formulas
grant commercial success. I would say that a movie
should not influence the society negatively. But
I can assure you that our movies will have only
justifiable violence.
Your
words to our readers…
Behindwoods
is one of my bookmarked sites and I’m a
regular reader. I love the site for its speed
in delivering content and the presentation. All
the best to you guys!
Interviewer:
Inian, Pradeep
Camera:
Hemananth.B
Text:
Prathap |
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