The obvious ones are biggies like Saina Nehwal, Pullela Gopichand, Narendra Paruchuri of Pragati Offset Pvt Ltd. Some of the other names are big in the Hyderabad society, like a Dinaz who made a career as a fitness trainer, Suhani Pittie – a jewellery designer, Arvind Chenji a leading photographer, Ali Baig – a theatre personality. It has also some really less known names, which make more interesting stories.

I would like to thank Hemant at Radio Mirchi for telling the guys at Passionate Foundation my story and recommending them to feature me. Not many people know that my family wasn’t too happy with my choice to get into films initially. I was coerced into Engineering stream in junior college (MPC) & failed miserably despite best efforts. Despite being from a film family, why wouldn’t my parents want me to join films? Its a long story. It an interesting argument they had. Will save it for another day! Getting into the highly capital-intensive business of print media was my choice. I had no mentors in it. I jumped into it purely out of passion, made mistakes, learnt from them & totally love my job now. Southscope will be the beginning to my longer journey in the media.

While I am amongst the fortunate amongst the ones featured in the magazine, having faced very less obstacles in my career, my choices have been unconventional & I am as passionate as the rest of them. Do read my story. And do share yours if its an unconventional & interesting one. Adios!

1)      Getting the audience to the theatre
2)      Getting enough audience to the theatre

Getting the audience to the theatre :

This is something many people might not agree. From a small-budget film, be it in Bollywood or Telugu the audience have modest expectations. A decent film with no great credentials can do well at boxoffice, if only it could convince the audience to come to the theatres.

The biggest challenge lies in getting them to the theatre.  In most cases, they have better alternatives. It could be watching a movie at home at fraction of the cost on DVD, or for free on TV. Their biggest obstacle is that a ‘big film’ too costs them the same ticket price & is vying for their money. When they have so many low-cost, high-value options why should they opt for a ‘small film’ over this? Out of sympathy that it’s being made by a small Producer? Or out of moral responsibility that they should encourage films made by new talent? The paying audience doesn’t care about these things.

Their only question they have be it a big or small film is? “Is this film worth my time and money?” Many small-budget films fail to address this basic question. If you watch the trailer of most of these films, there is nothing that creates anticipation or interest in the audience. The common man, wouldn’t have even heard the titles of nearly 50% of the 120-130 odd movies the Telugu film industry produces every year. People are not even aware of these film, forget considering to watch them.

If only using marketing or whatever trick, the filmmaker can get the audience to the theatres – chances are high they will feel satisfied. Like I said in most cases, they have modest expectations from the film. The first thing a small-budget movie should focus on is getting people to come to the theatres through whatever means – controversy, good music, sound marketing or a very saleable concept . Then half the job is done.

Getting enough audience into the theatres

This is something that’s not in the filmmaker’s hand, but is one of the prime reason why small-budget movies don’t make big money. Its not enough if the movie appeals to a really small niche. It needs to have sizeable audience to sustain its run in the theatre. But, why all this? Read on.

Most theatres in Andhra Pradesh have a seating capacity of anywhere between 500 to 1200 seats. The largest one has over 1600 seats! To attain break-even, a movie has to fill in atleast 20-25% of the seats. For a big movie, even if it doesn’t perform too well it easily fills in this kind of crowd. But imagine, in a theatre with 800 seating, for an average performing small-budget movie to pull in 250 people per show for 28 shows a week is no easy feat. Especially considering that it’s not the first choice of entertainment for people.

All this hue & cry by a section in the film industry about high rentals is because small-budget movies can’t make big money in this model where theatres are too big for small-budget films to fill up easily. Who is to be blamed for the really large theatres we have in our state?

So for a small budget film playing in an 800 capacity theatre, the Producer needs 7000 people to watch it just to attain break-even. He gets to pocket the money from the 7001^st movie goer onwards. But this is not an impossible feat. With sound marketing & decent content, a film can fill in a movie theatre enough to make decent money. We shouldn’t forget that Nuvve Kavali, Chitram, Anand, R. Narayana Murthy’s Orei Rickshaw, Mantra & many films in the industry were big money spinners despite being small-budget films. So, all these theories that the ‘system’ in Telugu film industry is designed to make small-budget films bleed always are just conspiracies.

Why high rentals?

Most of the theatres in our states were built between the 70s & 90s. Cinema was one of the few entertainment options then. People came in hordes to theatres to watch a movie. Hence the theatres made in that era were really big. But that’s slowly changing as people have alternate entertainment choices. Many people fail to understand that theatre business is part entertainment & part real-estate. The rent a theatre-owner charges is linked to the real estate value of his theatre. A theatre owner would expect the same rent from the theatre, which he would get had he given it to any other commercial activity like shopping mall or office space. For the same reason a movie hall in the prime city area would chargea higher rent than a one in the outskirts though, both of them might have the same seating capacity.

Andhra Pradesh – lowest rentals in India.

Any person in the trade would tell you Andhra Pradesh has one of the lowest rentals in the country. Much lesser than our neighbours like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Maharashtra. Chattisgarh & Orissa probably have lesser rentals. This is despite the fact that real estate in AP has grown much faster than the inflation in ticket rates. For many theatre owners it doesn’t even make business sense to run theatres. They’d rather build a complex & lease it to office spaces. But, many of them do as it’s a prestige investment, have an emotional bond with the business or its source of soft power in the community. All these work in advantage of the film industry. If a film can’t make money in Andhra Pradesh, probably it can’t make anywhere else in the country.

Profit-sharing basis :

Some people suggest the theatre should rent out itself on ‘percentage basis’, ie : charge a % instead of a flat fee. This will be a risky proposition for the theatres. Right now, a hit or flop doesn’t have much impact on the theatre owner – as they get paid a flat rent no matter what. But, if single-screens are to run on profit-sharing basis, the theatre owners would avoid risks and opt only for big-budget film as they manage to pull crowds easily.

Why would a theatre owner want to risk & give his theatre to a small-budget film when their success rate is so low? For the one odd movie that makes money he can’t bleed for the remaining 7 or 8 films. Theatre owner don’t have any sentiment towards the cause of ‘saving small-budget films’. Its business – whatever makes money! Despite running on ‘profit-sharing’ basis, this is one of the reasons why most multiplexes in the Hyderabad don’t screen many small-budget Telugu movies.

Arrghh.. So what the solution, then?

There is no magic solution to this. Probably in the future, with newer theatres and renovations of existing ones, we should have screens with smaller seating capacity. Then the rentals would be lower & require smaller audiences to make the movie profitable. A lot of the theatres in the state are already breaking down large halls into multiple screens to offer more choice to consumers & make money with a smaller crowd. But it’s a process & will take time. It’s not a doom’s day situation either. Let me remind you even today a small-budget Telugu film can make good money, but needs to work a little harder towards it. Smaller capacity single-screens with lower rentals would only make things a little better, that’s all. So again it finally boils down to the same things : 1) Good content, backed by 2) Good marketing & distribution.

I love the magazines America has, almost on every wide topic & niche. Wired, Fast Company, GQ,  Entertainment Weekly, INC & T3 are amongst my favorites. I always end up buying the imported versions of these magazine at Rs 500-700 a piece, that too a month or so after they hit the stands elsewhere.

The first thing that got me excited about the iPad, was that it was touted as the future of media consumption, especially magazines. In the last one month, I bought an iPad, paid for magazines, downloaded them & read them when I usually read magazines – while lounging at home or on-flight when all other devices dont work.

I can safely conclude that the iPad & other tablet devices which are going to hit the market are the future of magazine publishing. But, its not quite there yet.

Not Quite there Yet.

I have downloaded the “apps” (applications) of GQ, Wired & Time. Wired, a technology magazine was the first to jump onto the iPad bandwagon. Each magazine is sized at 500MB. My iPad only has 32GB of space, so thats a bummer. For each page, there are two version – the vertical layout & the horizontal layout (See image). Wired’s idea was to keep the magazine as close to the print edition as possible. I couldn’t change the text size.Wired’s e-magazine is a compilation of 100s of jpeg put together.  For US readers, there is no savings in price too as the newsstand version & the iPad version costs the same – $4.99.

Next up was TIME. The layout had the ‘theme’ of the print version, but was dynamic. The text could be enlarged. The navigation was easy to use. It also had a ‘live feed’ where latest articles from the website would show up in the app. It made a decent read. The last was my favorite magazines – GQ, but the biggest disppointment. It was one giant PDF file with copy protection!

The good part about all the three magazines I downloaded is that they had an easy to use navigation system. It was easy to find the articles of my interest. Attached are screencaps, which show navigation menu on the iPad which is better than print.

No interactivity, No social.

The only thing I found interactive were the ads! They look like print ads, but when you click can play videos! One of the simple things one expect in an e-mag is text search which a PDS lets you do. It isnt available on either of the magazines. Offline, for magazine I could atleast cut clips I like & file them or scan. Here, nothing of that sort was possible. Just read & save. I understand some of the content is exclusive for ‘paying customers’ hence sharing would be restricted, but a lot of the stories are readily available on their website. They could have atleast let us share those few articles. Also, “sharing” could work as sampling and help a lot of non-users convert into users.

Better images, no size restriction.

I still love holding a printed magazine & read but one thing the iPad beats the printed version hands-down is images. The images, be it editorial or advertising looks crisp on the iPad’s pristine display. In print, we’re restricted by space limitation. Articles are limited by number of words. We can only use a few images. On the digital front, publishers dont have size restrictions and we could use more images to make the story telling effective.

Limitation of Physical distribution.

This is the single largest motivation for all magazine publishers to embrace the iPad & other tablet devices. The print product costs a lot to produce. Most magazines lose money on each sale. For ex : Your average daily newspaper in India costs Rs 12-16 to produce, but is sold at Rs 2. The remaining cost is absorbed by advertising. Likewise, one copy of Southscope costs way more than the Rs 50 we sell it for. Other magazines too cost more to produce than what they’re sold for. From the newsstand price, we have to pay stores & distributors their cut. The actuals that come to us are only a fraction. So its obvious we lose money on each copy sold. The cost for producing a digital version of the magazine, would be fraction of that of the physical copy. Which means the publisher can actually make money selling magazines rather than losing on them. Publishers instead of incentivizing readers to move to the digital version by keeping it a tad lower than the print edition, have kept the prices the same. I can understand for Indian magazines wish cost Rs 25-50 ($.5 to $1) which is too low a price to sell an e-magazine. But American magazines vary between $3.99 to & $7.99 and definitely can sell their digital version at a lower cost.

Since the each print copy costs a lot to produce, we have to estimate the ‘demand’ correctly. If we print a lot & they dont sell, we bleed heavily. The digital version is only ‘produced’ only when there is a sale, so there is no wastage. You also help the planet by eliminating paper, but nobody cares about it which is another issue! We have demand for the magazine from even the remote areas of Karnataka, Orissa, metros outside South India & overseas audience. But its very hard to reach these readers through physical distribution. For ex : There might be 25 people in New York City who is interested in buying a copy of Southscope. But, imagine the effort it takes to print, ship the copy & make it available there. Imagine the the cost involved. Also, which stores do we stock them at? These 25 people could be spread across New York. We dont expect them to travel to the same store to buy our copy, nor can we stock it in all major news stands in the city, for just those 25 readers. So,we’re forced to let go off them. Even if they ordered the physical copy online, the cost is still the same. We have a small but sizeable audience in abroad and cities like Pune, Kolkata, Delhi & Mumbai. Digitial distribution would enable us to reach them better. Also, the futher the distance from Hyderabad, the longer it takes to reach the stands as we print it at Kalajyothy press & dispatch it from our office. Where as the digital version, the distance doesn’t matter.

Amazon Kindle, Zinio & others

There are other avenues of digital distribution. One of them is the Amazon Kindle. Last heard that Amazon & Sony are are trying to bring out dedicated color book readers without all the high-end jazz the iPad has like games, movies & browsing. Another great medium to reach our non-Apple audience is Zinio. Its a popular site that lets you buy the digital version of print magazines, by downloading their proprietary Zinio Reader. The best part about Zinio is it allows “portability”. You can buy a copy, read it either on your PC or your iPad. Also, the file-size of a Zinio magazine is a fraction of an iPad app, but the experience is better. I downloaded a copy of Esquire magazine and its just26mb. You can read all your magazines from the same app & lets you copy some of the text & send it to yourself or others over email.

Publishers catching up, making changes.

The publishers are realizing the short coming of their iPad apps & digital distribution front.GQ, Time made minor tweaks to their apps already and requested users to update their software. Since its an evolving medium, changed are bound to happen. Interactivity will slowly come. For ex : A celebrity tabloid could have a pic of a star & ask your to rate their style. Or have a contest embedded with the app, where your reply will be sent to them directly instead of you manually couriering it & or through email. The big names in print are watching this space closely & betting big on it. So are we.  As publishers, we’re looking to develop an iPad & iPhone/iTouch application. We’re indentifying the right tech-enabler to partner with us on this iniative. Slowly we would like to reach out all our audiences spread across geographies through the digital medium, be it through iPad, Blackberry or any other device that allows content delivery & monetization. Fow now, as a magazine junkie I am enjoying my monthly dose of GQ & Wired on the iPad.

The movie is a decent, entertaining watch. It falls short of other films of its genre, such as Mummy or Stargate but better than most other video-game adaptations like Hitman, Tomb Raider & Mortal Kombat. Most action films have wafer-thin or mediocre stories, but the “fantasy” backdrop limits that restriction. But, PoP doesnt make great use of it. As a testosterone-filled, male movie goer, where I was diappointed was the action episodes. There was not a single “WTF! moment” in the action scenes, nor great use of the swords & archery. With the same $150 million budget, Troy made a better on-screen granduer & action.  The movie’s story is no greater than any of the stories, Telugu cinema had churned out before in this genre. Like most other “Chandamama” stories of folklore, fantasy and mythology variety – this one has a archetypical setup. The ‘damsel in distress’” heroine, a villain seeking super-powers & the underdog hero with modest backgrounds and a “clause” in the path to resolution.

Hero of a modest background :
Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari : Chiranjeevi a is tour-guide.
The Mummy : Brendan Fraser is a convict, who seeks adventure.
Pathala Bhairavi : NTR is the son of a gardener.
Anji : Chiranjeevi is a tribal living in the forest.

The villain seeking a super-power :
Anji : Bhatia (Tinu Anand) wants to attain immortality by drinking water of the Akasa Ganga
Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari : Mahadrashta attains magical powers by sacrificing a divine woman.
Prince of Persia : Time can be reversed by the person, who plugs the dagger into the giant Sandglass.
The Mummy : Imhotep will destroy the world if he’s resurrected.

The “clause” to Resolution.
But, what brings this movie closest to our own stories is the “Clause in conflict”. There’s is a clause or hindrance to the resolution of the movie, which adds greater drama.

Prince of Persia’s clause : The dagger can turn back time, but only upto 60 seconds.
Pathala Bhairavi clause : The sorcerer S.V Ranga Rao a magic statuette which grants wishes. But that can be attained only by sacrificing a young lad.
Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari clause : Sridevi,a Goddess needs to find a ring she lost to re-enter heaven. But, she needs to find it within 30 days else, will remain on Earth as a mortal.
Anji clause : The Akasa Ganga showers only once in 72 years, that too only where the ”aathmalingam” is present.

Fantasy, folklore & mythological films can literally be “trademarked” by the Telugu Film industry. No other industry in India, produced as many films (and successes) in these genres like Telugu cinema did, during its Golden era (1950s to 1970s). We had very few films in these genres between 1990 and 2009. Reasons, I dont know myself.I feel with the right technicians, Telugu cinema can produce equally entertaining films such as The Mummy & the Prince of Persia within our own budgets (Less than Rs. 40 crore). As an aderant Telugu movie buff, I wish more movies of these genres are made in our industry. Below are more movies of the “folk & fantasy” genre. I have deliberately avoided the mythological & devotional genre. I might have missed some films, either due to oversight or lack of knowledge as most belong to an era before I was born. Feel free to suggest more titles.

Jagadeka Veeruni Kadha [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266659/ ]
Aditya 369 [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252196/ ]
Bhairava Dweepam [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264415/ ]
Suvarna Sundari [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257209/ ]
Ammoru [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264357/ ]
Arundathi [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1361809/ ]
Magadheera [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1447500/ ]
Yamadonga [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0924317/ ]
Yamudiki Mogudu [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246339/ ]
Yamaleela [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268042/ ]

The writing, be it screenplay or dialogs were top-notch. Seeing grey characters play lead roles in Telugu cinema is a rarity. Despite its relaxed pace, at no point did I lose interest in the movie.  Seeing the realistic screenplay, I wondered how an ‘outsider’ like Deva was able to depict the political scene so accurately. The dialogues are hands-down the best in recent times. While the music was alright, Mahesh Shankar’s background score made up for it. Along with Deva Katta, another behind-the-scenes star of the film was cinematographer Shyam Dutt. The film was like visual poetry. The input of all the technicians involved in the film, was pretty evident on-screen.

This is my first Sai Kumar film and I feel we’ve missed a great actor along the way. He’s a talent powerhouse & should have got bigger roles in mainstream Telugu Cinema. Hope that happens post Prasthanam. This film is Sharwanand’s quantum leap as an actor. This is his best work till-date. I appreciate producer Ravi Vallabhaneni for producing this film. I was happy in a way that I dint produce this classic. Had I did that, out of anxiety if it would click commercially, I would have attempted to “basterdize” the film with a comedy track, twist or action episodes. I appreciate the Producer for sticking to his director’s vision. Supposedly, he was offered two scripts to produce. One a love story with comedy & the second was Prasthanam. And he chose this film. Bravo!

But I am equally sad, that my company Geetha Films dint distribute this film. In that case, we would have planned an elaborate marketing campaign, given better theatres and ensured the movie gets watched by a wider audience. I just  wish the movie lasted longer in theatres as the word-of-mouth started picking up, but the movie wasn’t running in cinemas. I am happy that the Telugu audience are responding well to newer kinds of cinema. The boxoffice success of Shambo Shiva Shambo, Leader, Yem Maya Chesavo and Prasthanam are a testament to that. As an industry, I feel slowly yet steadily we’re pushing our limits creatively. There’s still a lot left to be achieved, a movie like this is a step in the right direction.

Please appreciate the filmmakers and their efforts. Dont watch pirated copies of the movie. Download/watch it from www.RajShri.com if you want to see it. Else, I am sure the DVD will be out soon. Its worth the wait!

Also read :  “My Take on Leader & why it works for me.” (Published on 20th February 2010)

1) Micheal Dell, founder – Dell

Dropped out of University of Texas, Austin at 19 to business full time. Founded Dell by opening up his Mac and rebuilt to see if he could. Today, he is worth $15.5 bn.

2) Sir Richard Brandson, The Virgin Group

Suffered from dyslexia in school, and dropped out of high school itself to open a music store named ‘Virgin’ in London. From there he expanded into telecom airlines, radio. He is worth $ 2.8 bn and is known for his lavish lifestyle.

3) Steve Jobs, Founder – Apple

Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana was once a thief. Jobs was once a hacker who made a machine that let people make illegal calls. And then, like the former he too drove his energies in the positive direction to do something that is remembered forever. Jobs was a geek who dropped out of Reed College, Portland after one semester to start out in business. Today he is worth over $5 bn

4) Ralph Lauren, Founder – Polo clothing line

Ralph’s surname was Lifshitz which he changed to Lauren to disguise his Jewish roots. He worked after school in the Bronx to earn money to buy suits. Dropped out of the City College of New York after two years. Dint attend fashion school either to start Polo, initially a necktie brand. Today, he is worth $3.5 bn.

5) Ted Turner, founder – CNN, owner – MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon

Dropped out Brown University to join his father’s billboard business. He sold that to fund ‘Cable News Network’, the channel that revolutionized TV viewing with its live coverage of the Gulf war. Turner went ahead to buy over MTV, Nickelodeon and is the head of the broadcasting empire – Time Warner, that he built. He also built ESPN which was later bought over by Disney. The maverick retired young at 67 and is worth $ 4.7bn.

People’s recommendations : Mark Zuckerberg (Founder-CEO, Facebook), Dhirubhai Ambani (Reliance Industries), Will Smith (Rapper turned Hollywood superstar). Will add more!

These are just some of the few people from the western world. There are many other lesser known billionaires who quit studying. For every B-school topper who made it big, I can point out three who dint have great formal education. For all these men were not great ‘graduates’, but great ‘learners’ if you know what the difference is. There are many more people who fit into the ‘Drop-outs Hall of Fame’ like Thomas Alva Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Willis and Woody Allen. But these great men weren’t entrepreneurs while some of them would be worth in billions too. So my fellow men, take pride in our tribe coz we redefined what success is with our failures. And purely co-incidental that there is no famous woman entrepreneur who was a college dropout. Oops!

Being an “insider”, I get asked on Twitter all the time whether to a certain rumour being circulated on the net is real. When its about my family, I do respond. At times I dont because its below my level to come and clarify every piece of junk. The more I answer, the more I will be made answerable. Many a time, I even get asked to clarify about celebrities who are not from my family. At this point – I really dont know what to say. I know its untrue, but how can I go about defending other people? I always wished I could do something about it. Sometimes, I see some hardcore fans of actors really getting worked up on these rumours.

While flipping OK!, one of the celebrity mags I bumped into a coulmn which totally caught my eye. Its titled “Real or Rumor?”, and simply states which of the gossip floating is true & which was one is real. I felt it was a good idea and suits our magazine very much. We could also get a quote from the celeb or their PR machinary. Would make it fun & authentic. While some harmless gossip can just float around, the ones that malign a celeb’s image can be dealt with. It would also make an interesting new feature in our magazine. I need your advice on whether we should introduce it.

Despite being the fastest & easiest way to popularity, Southscope kept away from rumour-mongering & attacking celebrities. Stars and our reader love our magazine for the fact that we keep away from yellow journalism. Doing this would would earn me more personal attacks from the “yellow press”, but I am game for it. Think it would be a good idea. Do vote and let me know your opinion.

But not all 100 days movie are equal success. Some of them run in more theatres. A movie that ran for “100 days in 100 centers” is a bigger hit than a movie that for “100 days in 80 centers”. BTW, in film terms, center means a town or city. The calculation was simple. The more the centers, the bigger the hit. The number of centers a movie had for 100 days was a testament to the hero’s stamina. Peculiarly, what the centers system couldn’t answer was which film was a bigger hit. A film that ran for 100 days in 50 centers, but had only 10 centers for 175 days or the one that ran for 100 days in 40 centers and ran for 175 days in 20 centers! See the paradox. Allu Arjun’s first film Gangotri ran for 100 days in 54 centers. Yet his third film Bunny, which was a much bigger hit, collected 40% more had only 35 centers. Yamadonga was the biggest hit of NTR’s career. Yet it had only 63 centers for 100 days, where as Adi had 95 centers. There are many more such instances.

Back then and even today all these centers, records and jazz don’t matter to a normal movie goer. They only know two things – good film, bad film. But, for the fans who have immense loyalties to the star, rivalries with other actor’s fans the “boxoffice records” meant more than a good movie itself. For me as a hardcore Chiranjeevi fan, all these mattered.  Release centers, 50 days centers, 100 days and silver jubilee centers. But things have changed and it’s time to move on.

The “Centers” Mania : Balakrishna’s Narasimha Naidu ran for 100 days in a record 105 centers. Chiranjeevi Indra passed that milestone and completed 100 days in 117 centers. NTR’s Simhadri beat that record by completing 100 days in 147 centers. Chiranjeevi’s Tagore finally beat that record by running for 100 days in 192 centers. Likewise, NTR’s Simhadri held the record for maximum number of silver jubilee centers. Then came Pokiri and so on.

The side-effects of records : These records were only meant for fans and the stars. But they burdened the industry quite a lot. Producers and distributors were forced to keep the movie in the theatres to please fans. For the theatre owners too it was a hassle, though they earn a flat rent irrespective of the boxoffice run. Empty theatres meant they wouldn’t be making money from parking fees, canteen sales which contributes a lot to their bottom-line. For many hit films, the producers had to spend 10-15% of his “take home” money (read : nett profits) on these records, which usually don’t last for more than a year. Also these theatres are ‘blocked’ by the old film, which is running to empty halls, where as if terminated it could accommodate a new film. Also these records can be easily manipulated by the Producer or Distributors, by running the film in the theatre and losing money. Thankfully, all this is fading quickly in Telugu Cinema.

Why we need a 100 days to make money? In those good old days, the number of theatres a movie released in were limited. A big star’s movie would release in about 150-200 theatres in the state. People dint have alternative entertainment choices. Movies used to run for long in theatres. Some movies even ran for years! For a movie to make Rs 20 crores at boxoffice it had to be in the over 100 theatres for about 100-150 days. For a producer to recover his money, the movie had to play in theatres for so long. So in those good old days more centers equals a bigger hit. This era lasted through the early and mid 2000s.

In this age of piracy, alternative entertainment options one cannot hope that his movie will run in theatres forever. Hence distributors of big-budget film adopted a strategy, known in Hollywood as “tentpole release”. The movie would open in the highest number of theatres, accommodate as many people in the first week and recover most of its budget in the first week few weeks itself. As the stakes are big in a expensive film, distributors want to reduce risk by getting maximum number of people to see it in the first week itself before any word-of-mouth about the movie spreads. This is the reason why we see many films that just seemed like ordinary films, yet are termed “hits” at boxoffice as they made big money.

Gross – the global standard : The metric used across the world to see which movie is a bigger hit is the “boxoffice gross”. Which simply is the amount of money the movie made by selling tickets at theatres. The more number of people see the film, the higher the gross. As simple as that.  The film that has a higher gross is a bigger hit. A film that grosses $100 million could get all that money in one week itself, or over a period of 4-8 weeks.

Avatar grossed over $2.7 billion worldwide, higher than Titanic’s $1.8 billion. It took Avatar only 21 weeks to collect this sum, where as Titanic took 41 weeks to reach that total. How long doesn’t matter. How much does. Avatar was watched by more people in theatres, collected more and is a bigger hit than Titanic. Period. All equations like “But, Avatar was made on budget of $300 million, where as Titanic was made for $180 million” don’t matter. Which film is more profitable is impossible to tell and doesn’t matter to most people. In all probability, Avatar will be a more profitable film to the studio than Titanic.

Short Life span of Telugu blockbusters : Jalsa released in over 1000 screens, grossed 20 crores in its first week. In the next 10 weeks the movie grossed another 22 crores. Nearly half the money it made was earned in the first one week itself. At 42 crores, the movie was telugu cinema’s second-highest grossing film back then. But it had only 25 centers for 100 days. Same case with Adhurs. The movie released in the most number of theatres, grossed over 20 crores at boxoffice in the first week. Went on to become one of the highest grossing films, yet it had only 15 centers for 100 days. Magadheera is Telugu cinema’s biggest hit till date. Yet it has only 3 centers for 175 days.

All the movies mentioned above released in over 800 screens instead of 300 like a few years back. Most of its audience got to see it in the first few weeks itself. So, why should they run in the theatres for longer? If the movie is terminated from theatres, it could accommodate a new film instead.

To simplify, the metric to measure a movie’s success has to change. It can’t be number of 100 days or 175 days centers, but boxoffice gross. The highest gross is the biggest hit. The second highest grosser is the second biggest hit and so on.

So, is that the end of the silver jubilee era?

Mostly, Yes. Probably, the film would be running for 25 weeks in a handful of theatres at most. Even Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu and NTR Jr can’t break their own 100 days and silver jubilee records. Not that they cant give hits like Tagore, Pokiri, Simhadri again. But the era where a film runs for months together in theatres is gone. All the records that were made between 2003 and 2008 will remain unbroken in the future, in all probability.

On the 175^th day, blockbusters would be making attempts to create “records” on a newer turfs. On television, for the highest TRPs. On home-video, for most number of DVDs and Blu-Ray sold. On the internet, on which is the most downloaded film. So, records are here to stay but have a new address. Let’s take our fight to the next level.

Our first venture in exhibition is a super-success. “Geetha Apsara” is the number one theater in Rajahmundry, and has the highest ‘average occupany rate’ in South India at 72% (our estimate, even India as attendance levels are much lower up North). We have acquired another theatre Teja in Palakol (our ancestral home town) and going to revamp it soon. On the distribution front – we have a great year with Leader, Avatar (Andhra Pradesh), Magadheera & Mahatma. This year’s line up includes Pawan Kalyan’s Puli, Mahesh Babu & Trivikram’s untitled film. We’re also looking at acquiring another ‘big budget’ film.

In our ‘core business’, film production other than Dad, we have two promising producers on board, B. Madhu (producer of Tagore & Ghajini [Hindi], co-producer Stalin) & Mr. Bunny Vasu who is turning a Producer with our untitled film directed by Sukumar. So Sukumar’s film, Allu Arjun’s Badrinath are our present ‘production’ projects for the year. Add to that, the tamil dubbed version of Magadheera, which will release in the second half of the year. We’ve joined hands with a A-list Tamil producer give it a big release in Tamil Nadu.

Also, I will be joining the Producers list by taking a project some time later, this year. So, we’re going through an exciting phase of making changes in the company, bottom-up. To accommodate these needs, we need more office space. We already have two satellite offices in Jubilee Hills and taking one more. This is excluding the Southscope office, which is a subsidiary of Geetha Arts. In our head quarters in Road 45, Jubilee – we have another floor with a swanky, new Google & Twitter-like office where me, Bunny (Allu Arjun) and my eldest brother Bobby (Allu Venkatesh) will operate out of. I will upload pictures of that office soon here. I am still active in the everyday management in Southscope, but wouldn’t be next year onwards after setting a professional management to run it. Other than these, personally I have floated two small but very exciting businesses. They’re all a part of my “larger plan” and are very exciting. Will update you about them, as they roll out.

I play small, yet significant roles in Geetha Arts – what ever my father Mr. Allu Arvind delegates to me. He still runs the show, calls the shots and is backed by an efficient team who has been with him for over 30 years. Other than seniors, we have also included some new people into the senior management. I will introduce them to you later, on this blog. Amongst the works I do at Geetha Arts is ‘branding’ as I always had the knack for it. But wait, mine is not too glamorous a job! I also do “admin” work like hunting for new offices, upgrading computers & equipment. We’ve designed a enterprise software, for “project management” which is suited to our unique needs. I also got to do some classic CEO-like stuff of hiring the new top-level management & exploring new business opportunities. I am getting trained in all the departments, so that I will be equipped to do bigger stuff in the future. Read the About page of this blog to know more about my ambition.

Soon, we’re going to ramp up our presence on the online medium – which includes a website and an official company blog. My father himself wants to write some stuff! You should read them as we both have totally contradictory opinions on many issues. Also, I want to set up a strong online presence for our stars Allu Arjun & Ram Charan (like a blog & if they’re interested Twitter). Both of them are actually tech-saavy : They use Blackberries, shop & make travel bookings themselves online. For all this I am putting together a small team as support staff. We’re looking for a small, hip webdesign studio to execute this project (Geetha Arts website, Allu Arjun & Ram Charan official website) on BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) basis.

In the past, we got a brand new logo. A Mumbai-based agency “Ink Inc” had designed it. Following our bold, minimalist logo we have designed some stationary too using the same principles. So, we consciously avoided color and stuck to greyscale. Also, all the employees & stakeholders in the company approved of it. I am just sharing them with you. Hope you liked them!

(Click here to read PART – I) People in the marketing industry estimate that the South Indian celebrity endorsement market is under-tapped. In today’s levels itself the market could be worth around Rs 50 crore. Yet it’s only Rs 20 crore in size. One of the prime reasons, I have found out is that – brands don’t know which celebrity suits their brand and how to sign them. With South India being such a pluralistic market, it’s hard for an outsider to know the big names and their image in each of the four states. Brands have the intention and budget to have a single brand ambassador for the whole of South India, or separate ambassadors for each market. But, most of them don’t know who the big names are – or if the celebrity’s image suits their brand.

Also the endorsement opportunities are not limited to the Suriyas and Trishas of the world, but also to other artistes. Big C is a mobile store chain which is mainly concentrated in AP, with monthly marketing spend in crores. It needs a popular local brand ambassador. They had Charmme, Kajal as brand ambassadors in the past and Ileana at present. Brands like Chandana Bros, RS Brothers, CMR have a strong presence in AP and need a face popular in the state. Pothy’s, Chennai Silks, Kumaran, Nalli, RmKV, GRT Thangamaligai, Prince Jewelers, Vasanth & Co are some of the brands that have a strong presence in Tamil Nadu and marketing spends in crores matching that of national advertisers. They only need faces familiar in Tamil Nadu. Likewise, Malabar Gold is a brand that’s popular only in Kerala and has Mohan Lal as a brand ambassador. Below are some of the ‘regional powerhouses’ which have huge budgets and market though they have limited geographical reach – most times, just to one state.

Some of the brands don’t just use leading heroes and heroines, but also popular character artistes. Comedian Vivek, former hero and artist Prabhu (Sivaji Ganesan’s son), Telugu comedian Dharmavarapu, Prakash Raj, yesteryear heroine Vijayashanti have been featured in many ads as the brand felt they don’t need the ‘glamour’ element in their ad to get their message across. As this business gets more streamlined, there will be more opportunities for artists like Brahmanandam (Telugu), Vadivel (Tamil), Vivek (Tamil), Sunil, Venu Madhav who are ‘stars’ in their own right and can bring great mileage to brands with their endorsement.

Celebrities and Marketers don’t speak each other’s language

Lot of brands have the appetite and budget for a celebrity ambassador, but do not know how to go about it. Many a times, a brand manager calls me or my editorial team at Southscope and asks, “We need a brand ambassador for South/AP. Who is the Shahrukh Khan/Hrithik Roshan of South/AP?” We try to advise them that there are no exact parallels. Instead of asking “Who is the Shahrukh Khan of Andhra Pradesh?” let’s turn the question the other way round. “Who is the Ram Charan Tej of Bollywood?” Abhishek? Both are sons of superstars, but no similarity at all. Hrithik? Close in personality, but Charan belongs to a much younger age bracket. Ranbir? Both are youth icons, but Charan has more mass appeal. Realizing it’s hard to draw parallels, we ask them what is it they seek to achieve through their brand ambassador.Then, they describe their requirements. For example – “We want our brand to be seen as a leader, have aspirational look, appeal to both urban and rural youth.” Considering their requirement, we suggest names on who might fit their needs. It doesn’t end with that – again they come back to me if I can pass on the numbers of their business managers, which we oblige.

A month later, on re-connecting with the brand we realize that the deal didn’t go through. Most of the stars or their managers do not know how the advertising and branding field works and not equipped to handle the legal & creative requirements of brands. The brands do not know the language of the ‘film industry’ and how deal-making is done here. This is one of the reasons why most deals don’t go through. As strange as it might appear, it is true. Only an ‘insider’ in both these industries can close a deal, which is why there is a need for an “entertainment marketing agency”. The star needs an agency that can advise him or her and ‘manage’ all the brands he or she endorses. The brand needs an agency which can manage all the brand ambassadors in its portfolio. Most big brands today have multiple brand ambassadors.

The near future of celebrity endorsements in South India

Unlike earlier, brands don’t prefer to close endorsement deals through ‘mediators’ or middle men but seek marketing agencies with which have sound knowledge of the local industry and the muscle to rope in stars for their endorsements. Some of the leading ‘entertainment marketing’ agencies in India are KWAN, a new floated outfit which is the market leader, followed by others such as Globosport, Cornerstone, Bling and a few other smaller ones. Incidentally, Mahesh Babu is the first and only South Indian star so far to be exclusively represented by an an agency, KWAN. Though others have done endorsements, they’ve done it in their individual capacity. Like how the corporatization of the film industry has brought in more revenues, the entry of marketing & branding agencies would do the same to the local industry. All the big players have their eyes set on the Southern industry as they feel this is the next “growth market” as Bollywood and sport stars are nearing saturation. Also the opportunities are not limited to endorsements alone, ‘Appearance fees’ for showroom openings, press conferences, TV shows and events is another avenue. So is ‘Performance fee’ paid for performing at a certain corporate event or award function. ‘Branded entertainment’ is another segment for opportunity, where a celebrity who need not be the brand ambassador lends himself for a TV show or live event. For ex: A leading electronics brand being the lead sponsor for a concert by a leading music director. There are many other opportunities to be explored. The dialogues between the brands and celebrities have already started. In the near future you would be seeing more of your favorite film stars outside movies. The billboards, TV ads, newspaper ads you consume will be far more interesting, familiar and convincing. Also, I feel Rs 50 crore is still a modest number considering how movie-obsessed South Indians are.