A new digital chat show brings directors from behind the camera to the front, so you learn more about the 'star makers' of Bollywood
Megha Ritam with Rahul Dholakia while shooting an episode
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'I live in a rented flat and travel by auto rickshaw most of the time. I am pretty worthless as far as that is concerned,' laughs Rahul Dholakia, director of Raees - 2017's first entry into the Rs 100-crore club - when asked about his net worth. Meanwhile, Madhur Bhandarkar reveals how he would sell DVDs at a shop before he went on to helm the National Award-winning Chandni Bar. These interesting nuggets are part of Talk Shop, a weekly digital chat show with Bollywood directors. It launches this Friday on the YouTube channel of India Film Project (IFP), Asia's largest filmmaking community that has been hosting an annual filmmaking competition in India since 2011.
Abhishek Chaubey
"In Hollywood, directors are a celebrated lot. People go to watch certain films only because of the director attached to the project. However, in India, a film may make Rs 100 crore but many aren't even aware of the director's name. So, the purpose is to introduce them to the masses," reasons IFP founder Ritam Bhatnagar. The first season features 10 episodes with guests including Tigmanshu Dhulia, Hansal Mehta, Sujoy Ghosh, Abhishek Chaubey, Shakun Batra, Shashank Khaitan, Dibakar Banerjee and Ram Madhvani. A special edition with filmmakers Amit Golani and Nidhi Bisht of The Viral Fever is also planned. "The idea was to also focus on those who have made it big in the digital space."
Sujoy Ghosh
Hosted by Megha Ritam, a radio jockey and film enthusiast, each episode is 25 minutes long and divided into four segments. A casual chat on the director's filmmaking journey ("we will show childhood photographs of some of the directors") is followed by Build A Scene, a segment where the guest has to create an impromptu scene based on the given location, prop and character, or narrate a conversation that would occur between two characters from his films. For instance, Chaubey was asked to narrate a scene where Tommy Singh (Udta Punjab) met Ishqiya's Babban in an elevator.
Ritam Bhatnagar
"In another segment, we show the directors what people say about them by pulling out tweets or questions from Quora. However, we've stayed away from delving into nuances of their craft or asking them how they frame a scene as it's a filmmakers' show, and not a filmmaking one," says Bhatnagar.
He adds that the team had to break the ice with several filmmakers to get them to open up on set. "Most of them are camera-shy. With Sujoy, we shot for a few minutes but realised he wasn't comfortable. So, we switched off the camera, chatted with him about a few common friends and then, re-shot the episode from scratch."
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