Film promotion turns into innovation

Varun Dhawan had to ride a bike on the busy streets of Mumbai and chat up girls. How actors are coming up with new ways to promote their films!

These days actors have to work really hard to promote their films. They have to appear on all television shows and have a long list of media interviews to do. After so many tricks and schemes that expert minds work on to promote the film, there is no guarantee of success at the box-office. In recent times Varun Dhawan had to ride a bike on the busy streets of Mumbai, chat up girls and do a jig to amuse a lady cop before fetching his producer Ekta Kapoor, waiting at a CCD Outlet and travel together to Film city for an event. Varun said the film promotions were weighing him down after working round the clock to complete the shoot on time. He said it is not easy shooting with your father in your second film and there were times, he felt unable to cope with the dual role of a son and an actor.

From Sanjay Dutt and Hrithik Roshan to Abhishek Bachchan and Ranbir Kapoor, all of them have confessed to turbulent times when working with celebrity father and now Varun is the latest to join the club. It is only when elder brother Rohit explained to Varun that everybody has to go through the mixed emotions and fight the demons that the Student of the Year was able to drop his baggage and transform into a Hero for his director and watching his ease David Dhawan also suddenly turned into Daddy Cool all thanks to Rohit who has contributed to the film in more ways than one, including the title of the film ‘Main Terra Hero’.

The title of a film has always been important because that is what initially lures the audience to theatres. When Yash Chopra was launching son Aditya Chopra as a director, the film was ready but they had to still freeze in on a suitable title. Many names were suggested but Yash Chopra was not satisfied. Then one day, Kirron Kher was visiting Chopra on the sets and Kher suggested ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge’ and Yash Chopra jumped with joy! He was so thrilled with Kirron’s suggestion that he lent a special credit to Kirron in the titles for suggesting besides of course the customary fees as a part of ‘shagun’. Similarly it was Shaban Azmi who suggested ‘Junoon’ for Shyam Benegal’s film for Shashi Kapoor’s home production and everybody had instantly accepted it. Sometimes a producer has to buy a title from another producer who has registered the title but not made the film as yet as in the case of Rajshri Films new film’ Samrat’, a title purchased from art director Nitin Desai. Most of the time, a director gets obsessed with a title , the way Amol Gupte got obsessed with the title ‘Hawa Hawaii’ and was lucky nobody had registered it.

When Dilip Kumar attended his son’s wedding Boman Irani tweeted Dilip Kumar’s picture with his mother and said “Sala main toh saab ban gaya”. Now when his film with Amitabh Bachchan is ‘Bhootnath Returns’ is ready for release Boman has taken the poster of the film to his mother to show that Bachchan and he are in the same frame. Everybody knows that Bachchan plays a ghost in the film, what most don’t know is that Boman plays a politician aka ‘Bhau’ in the film. In a rather difficult scene Boman had to perform in the film he is attacked by ‘Bhootnath’ during a press conference! Director Nitesh Tiwari was clear about how to shoot the scene but didn’t know how to write it or explain to his actor as a result Tiwari took Boman into confidence and gave him a freehand to perform as he wished. Boman was nervous but finally managed a performance that rendered all on the sets speechless! Let me recap some memories. On the sets of ‘Mr India’ director Shekhar Kapoor was unable to articulate how Sridevi should behave when caressed by an invisible Anil Kapoor in ‘Mr India’ and let the actor do what came to her naturally and Sridevi was sparkling in “Kaate nahi kat ti…”

Kangana Ranaut is at a stage where she can do no wrong and producers are waiting in a queue for her to give her nod to their projects but Kangana is not in a hurry. She likes being involved in her films and is happy that her directors take her suggestions kindly. She has written some dialogues in ‘Queen’ and now she is involved in the music and the costumes of ‘Revolver Rani’. Last heard, she requested her director to record a title track in the voice of Usha Uthup and is delighted with the results. We saw how Kangana let herself go while performing to “Maine hothon se lagai toh…” in ‘Queen’ and if that is anything to go by we can be ready for another rocking performance from her in ‘Revolver Rani’.

It was the final week of shooting ‘Humshakals’ in Mauritius and director Sajid Khan was getting emotional. In the previous schedule he had invited Kareena Kapoor and Genelia D’souza to come and spend time with the unit and both the heroes, Saif Ali Khan and Reitesh Deshmukh were happy to see their wives. Now with just the patchwork shooting to be done, Sajid decided it was time for some celebration. Khan invited the Vice Prime Minister of Mauritius Xavier Luc Duval and Minister of Arts and Culture Mookhesswur Choonee to visit the sets and to make it special asked him to give the clap for the last shot of the film. Khan told them he was so happy shooting in their country that he would like to return to it again and again. Many years ago,

Yash Chopra had said that while shooting anywhere in India is a nightmare because of the formalities involved in obtaining permissions, shooting abroad is a pleasure and a privilege. Seems like just in the way YRF returned to Switzerland again and again, Sajid Khan will return to Mauritius again and again!

Bhawana Somaaya / Tweets @bhawanasomaaya