Hansal Mehta lauds OTT platforms; says never been a better time to be a filmmaker
Hansal Mehta, Nikkhil Advani and Ashwini Iyer Tiwari spoke about long formats on OTT during the recently held second-anniversary celebration of SonyLIV 2.0
Follow(Image: Hansal Mehta/Instagram)
Ever since OTT made its way into the lives of the people, the entertainment industry has seen some drastic changes. The biggest of the names, from actors to filmmakers, have made their way to the OTT, especially after the pandemic hit in early 2020, followed by a nationwide lockdown.
Since then, OTT has seen lot many changes with some of the best original content making its way to the multiple platforms that are available for a viewer. Recently, SonyLIV 2.0 celebrated two years of its revamp anniversary, for which it held a ‘Creators’ Round Table’ on ‘Taking Indian Content to a Global platform’ that included Rana Daggubati, Hansal Mehta, Nikkhil Advani, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Danish Khan and Sameer Nair. The session was moderated by Rajeev Masand.
During the ‘Creators’ Round Table, the filmmakers were of their views on whether they need to flex more muscles for long-form stories on OTT in comparison to a feature film. Answering this, filmmaker Hansal Mehta, whose Scam 1992, starring Pratik Gandhi, was a major hit, speaks of challenges that come with long formats.
“With original series, long formats, you need to work longer. You are not limited to the confines of a particular formula, but you are rather encouraged and liberated,” said the 54-year-old filmmaker.
He further went on to add laud the OTT platforms saying, “Even though it is a time-consuming process (long formats on OTT), there has never been a better time for a filmmaker or a creator. This has perhaps been the most creatively satisfying phase in the 25 to 26 years of my filming career.”
(Sameer Nair, Danish Khan, Hansal Mehta, Rajeev Masand, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Rana Daggubati and Nikkhil Advani at SonyLIV 2.0's second-anniversary celebrations in Mumbai. Image: Asianet Newsable)
Joining him on that, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, who recently announced her upcoming project ‘Faadu’ with SonyLIV, said that OTT comes with a lot of creative satisfaction, especially in terms of exploring music and cinematography.
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Filmmaker Nikkhil Advani, who too will soon be releasing ‘Freedom at Midnight, defined feature films as a sprint race and long formats as a marathon. “Considering that most of us are working with other platforms also, OTT is not that simple,” said Advani, who created Rocket Boys, helmed by Abhay Pannu.
Recently, the OTT platform announced a number of projects that will soon be released including Scam 1993: The Telgi Story, Rocket Boys 2 and Maharani 2, among many others. With this, it also announced a number of projects in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam that too will be released soon.
