LAUNCHING OUR SECOND BABY IN STYLE The directors from our film fraternity know the importance of the 'second' film. They may have garnered all the acclaim with a stunning debut but if they aren't able to follow up that success with a worthy second outing, then they may be labelled as 'flash in the pan', 'one film wonder' or any other fancy tag that the internet generation so easily cooks up. Likewise for us at Behindwoods, we are faced with the Himalayan task of maintaining the benchmarks that we set last year with our first baby named 'Behindwoods Gold Medals'. This event, held at the ITC Grand Chola in June last year, was appreciated and noted by all comers for the professional and sleek way in which it was held. It was more like a business conclave, free from the glamorous foreplay and fillers that generally dominate such award functions. The list of winners, handpicked meticulously by our in-house jury, industry experts and online polls, was appreciated and we were labeled 'authentic' and 'unbiased'. It was a one year process culminated in a fitting way. With quite a bit of hype and expectations surrounding our second edition, this year, we decided to go a step higher by having a launch event for Round 2 of the 'Behindwoods Gold Medals'. The launch event was held at the Raintree Hotel in Chennai on May 31, and it was hosted by our in-house VJ, the young and promising Abishek Raaja. It was an evening packed with glitter and stars and the best part was, it got wrapped within three hours thanks to the way it was packaged in relevant segments. To kick-start proceedings, Behindwoods Gold Medals was launched formally amid fireworks and revelry. Winners in 6 prestigious categories were then announced - Manorama and M.S.Viswanathan for the Golden Legacy Award, Kamal Haasan for the K.Balachander Medal for Excellence in Indian Cinema, Rajinikanth for the Lifetime Achievement Award, A.R.Rahman for the Music Excellence 2014 award and Vaali for the Legendary Performance 2014 award. The People's Choice Awards were launched next and the nominees in both the Male and Female categories were announced through smartly cut A/Vs. S.A.Chandrasekhar did the honors for this segment and spoke highly of 'gurunathar' K.Balachander and also Behindwoods for our growth and belief. He cast the first vote for the People's Choice Male category (any guesses on his pick?) and the voting response from online fans has been rousing over the past few days since the launch. The next segment was for honoring 2014's National Award winners from the Tamil cinema fraternity. The Kaaka Muttai team (director Manikandan and the kids Vignesh and Ramesh), the Kuttram Kadithal team (director Bramma.G and producer J.Satish Kumar), editor Vivek Harshan and Dhananjayan Govind were felicitated by respected senior honchos of the industry. Following this was an emotional little episode when the K.Balachander Medal for Excellence in Indian Cinema was launched. Veterans Nassar and Vasanth spoke very highly of us for our initiative in instituting this medal and also nostalgically recollected fond memories of their experiences with KB sir. Both of them reiterated that this medal has to be given out every year to meritorious candidates. Pushpa Kandasamy, daughter of the legendary director, spoke about how she saw her father's traits in Behindwoods - being ahead of times and extremely supportive of upcoming talents. It was clearly evident that she was genuine in the way she expressed her thoughts and meant every single word of what she spoke. Our MD, Mr. Manoj spoke in a heartfelt way about how he was struck by the energy and innocence of KB sir when he met him last year to present him with his medal. Here we also state the reason why we at Behindwoods are instituting the KB medal, which is primarily to take forward his legacy to the internet generation so that he continues to inspire current gen short film makers and prospective future film makers. The Wall of Fame was launched next, by director Bala. All the deserving technicians, who let their work speak for themselves in 2014, were featured on the wall. This pioneering initiative was fittingly unveiled by the visionary director, who has become a regular at our events. Given the growing importance of short films and how they are turning out to be a visiting card for aspiring directors, the Behindwoods Gold Medal for the Best Short Film was launched next by Karthik Subbaraj, Balaji Mohan, CV Kumar and Santhosh Narayanan on stage, while Bobby Simha's exclusive promo video shot by us for the same, was played just before this moment. 2 best short films in the comedy genre will be selected and their directors would be awarded with Behindwoods Gold Medals and also an opportunity to narrate their scripts to ??C.V.Kumar. Karthik Subbaraj fondly spoke about how Behindwoods was a good platform for his earlier short films. Some of the wall of famers like Nassar, Thulasi, Karunakaran, Nivas Prasanna, Vijay Milton, Hariharan ('Madras' Johnny), Abhay Jodhpurkar and Jigarthanda's sound engineers Shree Shankar and Vishnu Govind were then called on stage and they shared a few moments on their success journey and joy at being feted by Behindwoods. Nassar spoke graciously about learning from the kids - Sarah and Shravan, who acted with him in Saivam. One of the little high points of the evening was involving Santhosh Narayanan, who must have felt thrilled when director Bala paused his speech on stage, recognized Santhosh in the crowd and instantly appreciated him for his work in 36 Vayadhinile. This youngster is soaring to unimaginable heights, and with the Superstar Rajini film in his kitty, the sky is definitely not his limit. Among the dignitaries from the industry in attendance on May 31 were K.Bhagyaraj, S.A.Chandrasekhar, Vasanth, Nassar, Bala, Mr. Kandasamy and Mrs. Pushpa Kandasamy, Dhananjayan Govind, CV Kumar, Thulasi, Karthik Subbaraj, Santhosh Narayanan, Balaji Mohan, Praveen KL, Vivek Harshan, Leo John Paul, Karunakaran, director Vijay Milton and his Goli Soda team, Vijai Murugan, director Manikandan and his Kaaka Muttai kids - Vignesh and Ramesh, producer J.Satish Kumar and Kuttram Kadithal director Bramma.G, Nivas Prasanna, Abhay Jodhpurkar and Harikrishnan of Madras fame. We sincerely thank all these esteemed personnel for taking time out from their busy schedules to grace our launch event. "Idhu Verum Trailer Dan Ma", we will see you soon on July 19, with a bigger, grander and more memorable main course. We can already hear all of you roaring "I am Waiting"