By Hindustan Times
Making a sequel to the successful adult comedy Delhi Belly isn't at the radar of filmmaker Abhinay Deo now, but he says that he has three more films in hand.
"Delhi Belly 2 isn't at the cards in this day and age. The author and that i want to sit and write it, if we feel we now have material,"
Abhinay told IANS. "I'm doing three more movie projects and all three are within the writing stage. I'll talk more about that later," he said.
Abhinay's first directorial venture, Game, didn't do well. But his second, Delhi Belly, was a runaway success.
A sought-after ad filmmaker, Abhinay won last month a Gold Lion award on the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for his campaign I'M Mumbai for the Mumbai Mirror newspaper. He became the primary director from India to win the award, considered equal to an Oscar. "It feels fantastic. I'm glad that I MAY do this," he said.
Ask him what he enjoys making most -- ads or films-- and he says: "I enjoy both. This is a great experience to do both and both have their very own magic. Ad is my old flame. I'VE always done commercials. Feature is something I REALLY LIKE doing now. I BELIEVE both (ads and flicks) have their very own challenges. There are some ads, like for Mumbai Mirror, which were incredibly challenging. It's like doing a production for a small feature," said Abhinay, who has directed commercials for Pepsi, Nike and Cadbury.
Son of actors Seema and Ramesh Deo who played the couple within the 1971 film Anand, Abhinay started off as an adman.
Asked if there have been any specification on the way to form a base in filmmaking, he said: "THERE IS NOT ANY thumb rule. There's no recommendation from my side that it's better to get into ads first. But something I WILL say is that making ads disciplines you regarding time. It teaches you the price of time."
"Ads are 30-40 seconds long. So that you have to be careful about every millisecond. Feature films roughly spoil you as it offers you a possibility to play with time," he said.
On celebrities endorsing brands, he said: "That does work. There's no doubt about that." He then added: "Sometimes, a celeb overshadows a brand and often a celeb works effectively for a brand. So it relies on how the agency and client choose to use it."
After directing two movies, Abhinay desires to make an ad that doesn't look staged. "In advertising, there's a certain form of staged feeling because on the end of the day, you might be selling a brand. An ad looks as if an ad. After doing a feature, my idea is to make an ad, which doesn't appear to be an ad. I NEED to make it look real. That is what's appreciated now," he said.
Emphasising at the role of a director in making ads, he said every director has "varying degrees of involvement".
"Because I'VE had a robust agency background, my involvement in scripting is lots more," he said.
