As Pitchers pushes its way up IMDb rankings, ANANYA SHARMA talks to creators of web series to sense the next level of online entertainment content
At a time when our B-Town actors are desperate for television celebrityhood in Hollywood, it is heartening to note that our web series are being courted avidly all over the world. Very recently, TVF Pitchers was ranked 25 with a rating of nine on IMDb’s list of top global shows.
“We are more than happy that people keep folders of The Permanent Roommates andPitchers alongside the folders of House of Cards and Game of Thrones (having just topped Emmy nominations). This generation has finally got something indigenous to relate to,” exclaimed TVF founder Arunabh Kumar.
The reason whyPitchers is as big a hit as any other smart humour Western fiction shows is best articulated by loyalist Abhishek, who said, “This is unlike anything in India, online or offline. It is faster, funnier and more relatable. Good acting and oh, drunken talks have never been more accurate.”
Web series like All About Section 377 and The Permanent Roommates are already enhancing that contemporary resonance. However, the popularity is not enough to prop up a throbbing business just yet. “Making a web series is not as easy as it looks. There are too many struggles one has to face, from budgets to timelines to content to resources, everything is challenging. But then we just believed in the motto of ‘lights, camera and experiment’ and just went ahead with it,” reasoned Arunabh.
Asked why TVF never approached established channels for their shows, he explained, “The youth or rather the millennials have been able to relate to our content but unfortunately they are not glued to the TV anymore. In terms of viewership, our shows can surpass the popularity of a TV show running at a TVT rating of 4 or 5.” The Permanent Roommates has crossed over 1 million views. “Our viewers do not relate to the TV anymore. The only content they watch are shows and movies from the West, mostly downloaded from Torrent. So that is the space that works for us.”
Though an entire generation has been hungry for contemporary content for a decade, Arunabh is yet to get ambitious with the numbers game. The budget of a web series produced by TVF usually ranges from Rs 50,000 to a few lakhs per episode. They use shooting equipment used in a low-budget Bollywood film. “But being a quality-focussed content company, our ambition is not to make a lot of shows or high budget presentations but rather the best content that can become a global representation of India,” he added.
A brand new web series, Shaadi Boys is all set to launch on VOOT this month. It is about three boys who accidentally get into the wedding planning business and make big bucks in the process. Yet it doesn’t qualify for mainline television. “That medium is regressive in terms of ideas. They still believe that sisters-in-law are scheming whereas the youth have moved away from these jaded ideas. It’s easy to blame the audience and difficult to break paths and create fresh content. With the internet invasion in the Indian household, the market is set to get further segmented.
TV serials vs web series is the same as family dinner vs partying with friends,” said Garima and Siddharth, writers of Shaadi Boys, best known for scripting Karan Johar’sBrothers and Sanjay leela Bhansali’s Goliyon ki Raasleela. Having seen the competitive world of Bollywood, they still feel that the biggest challenge for the new web series writer is to create absolutely different content for the most unconventional medium. “Still we did manage to create this and we feel Viacom/Voot have done a tremendous job of executing this show,” said Garima. “Watch the show for our lead characters Neil, Nitin and Mukesh, and you won’t even realise when they will make you one of their own,” added Siddharth.
Meanwhile, TVF is coming up with Season 2 of Pitchers, which will release in 2017. Meanwhile, they are working on the second season of Biswa, the most watched talked show online, where Biswa, the creative director at TVF, plays the character of Arunab, a parody on TV anchor Arnab Goswami. “We are extremely grateful that the audience is embracing the content in the right spirit of humour and satire,” said Arunabh.
And if you thought web series are just for the youth, think again as Techcon with Dad has found followers among our senior citizens.