Playing it safe

It’s payback time for AS Ravikumar Chowdary, who after years of assisting under different directors, made his directorial debut with producer Bhavya Anand Prasad’s damp squib ‘Manasutho’ (2002). The producer has also bankrolled the director’s ready-to-release feature ‘Soukhyam’. “Since the film also stars Gopichand, with whom I’ve collaborated for ‘Yagnam’, we took appropriate measures to come up with a subject that has the right mix of comedy, action and emotion,” avers Ravikumar.

Director AS Ravikumar Chowdary talks about his Thursday-release ‘Soukhyam’ and why he had to play it ‘safe’, how Gopichand has transformed over the years and setting trends…

‘Soukhyam’ is a sequence of events of a guy (Gopichand) who comes up with different tricks to win his love’s (Regina) family. The director admits that it’s a run-of-the-mill subject. “The narration is the difference maker,” he states confidently. “We played a safe game as we made a film keeping in mind the audience taste.”

Ask him why he chose to play it safe and he responds, “The industry follows the trend and trend changes every four years. The trend now is to make a comedy entertainer and we made ‘one’. “Moreover, I’m a firm believer in comedy. If you look at films like ‘Misamma’, ‘Gundamma Katha’ and ‘Mayabazar’, besides strong plot, they were high on humour. Comedy never ceases to find audience.”

Doesn’t he believe in setting the trends? “’Yagnam’ was a trendsetter as I’ve dealt factionism in a different light, in complete contrast to the films that released prior to it. Like-wise ‘Pilla Nuvvu Leni Jeevitham’ was a trendsetter screenplay-wise as I told it in a back and forth narration. It was very new to Tollywood.”

Ravikumar insists that Gopichand has come of age. “He was very rough when we started ‘Yagnam’ but over a period he adapted and moulded himself to the current demands. He used to take multiple takes during ‘Yagnam’ to get the shot right but now he is a single-take artiste. He goes through the scene before I narrate to him and gets his queries cleared. Once he starts filming, he just goes with the vision of the director,” he shares.

While Ravikumar has dabbled in different genres--though his success ratio is poor--he concurs that job satisfaction is more when he tells a new subject. “But at the end of the day if audience, the producer and distributors are happy with a routine subject told in an entertaining way, the director will be happier,” he concludes.