Shah Rukh Khan (SRK): Venky sir will introduce everyone to you guys and we will move on from there.
Venky Mysore (VM): One key person we are missing today is Karim Morani. Blesson is our CFO and he has had the longest association with the organisation. Karuna is one of the founding members of the company and a co-producer of our movies. Keitan and Harry have been anchoring VFX and instrumental in establishing a new benchmark in VFX and other creative work. Shailja handles our digital initiative across various platforms.
BOI: Shah Rukh, can you please tell us about Venky Mysore?
SRK: Venky sir used to work for Birla Sun Life… for how many years?
VM: I have been in the industry for 25 years and was with them for five years.
SRK: He joined the team initially with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). But we realised there were two aspects to running a sports company. We needed to streamline KKR since there are so many verticals including the administrative and marketing. Sometimes, I feel it’s a little more difficult than films. During the IPL, it turns into a virtual film production unit. He streamlined it thanks to his love for cricket.
I don’t understand corporate culture very well but he brought in that culture. Ever since Venky sir came on board two years ago, things have become more streamlined and he is now like our lucky mascot. He spent a year understanding the different aspects of filmmaking and recently created this whole corporate structure with Blesson. They plug the loopholes that I cannot plug.
So, Venky sir joined us with Chennai Express. He is like a one-point person who manages the company and that lets us do what we do best. The film business is a lot like a slot machine. You keep pushing in pennies till you hit the jackpot but how long can you keep putting those pennies in and can you keep doing this without losing? We have managed to pull it off for 10 years but, going forward, we need someone to lead the company in a way that is more organised and yet make the movies that we want to make. Basically, to see that the slot machine does not give away all what we have created and also keep getting something back.
BOI: Karuna, tell us about the experience of turning producer with Chennai Express.
Karuna Badwal (KB): I was an entrepreneur and it was a sharp learning curve after I turned co-producer. When you are on the sets, it’s like playing a live game. Everything needs to fall in place, deadlines have to be met, and budgets need to be taken care of. I think the key thing I learnt was that everything requires a tremendous amount of detailing, organising and one should be able to pre-empt every situation. Films are more dynamic business than any other profession but it is a challenge we rise up to every day.
BOI: Blesson, can you tell us about your journey from Dreamz Unlimited to now?
Blesson Oommen (BO): I have been with Red Chillies since its inception. You can’t build a ship and sail in a day. I am glad I have been part of building the Red Chillies ship since the very beginning.
BOI: Are the main verticals of the company film production, marketing, post-
production and VFX?
SRK: Yes! Actually, we used to run many more verticals like a television arm and we had quite a profitable advertising unit. More than being disorganised, we had our fingers in too many pies. It wasn’t like we weren’t making money. But let me put it this way. Producers are extremely important. They are the backbone of income and they need to speak to their project managers, team them up and streamline them in the right way.
We still have the capacity to restart advertising within 48-hours. I think we also have the capacity to start our television work in a week’s time, if we need to. Maybe we can’t do it ourselves but we can outsource it. When Venky sir joined us, we had these brainstorming sessions on every vertical before we went into Chennai Express. VFX is a business model in itself. It’s a long-term plan. You can’t have a VFX team without knowing the business. Our sustaining power was that Keitan and Harry had a company called H20 and they started with a team of four to five people.
When we took over their company, we decided to go full throttle into VFX. The idea was that, in a couple of years, people would realise that this Indian company was not just doing an operator’s job or creating bits and pieces for Hollywood films. RA.One was a calling card and Krrish 3 will, hopefully, be another.
In the next three years, our focus will be to get into production in a larger way. We will not only make big star films but also take up small and medium-budget projects because the films I do fall prey to a bigger set of producers. Karuna and Karim can oversee the small-budget films and synergise our VFX into those films. I am not trying to compare myself with a high-end studio like, say, a Dreamworks where they have the backend of VFX to represent the animation or VFX films. A lot of people can say, ‘Arrey, RA.One nahi banani chahiye thi!’ But I think with a company like ours, we need to synergise our strengths – production and VFX.
Maybe a few years later, we will look at what studios abroad do but first look at television. And we will function like our VFX model then. We will not do bread-and-butter projects, just to get in, make money and leave. The idea would be to try and be the game-changers.
We then need to have the infrastructure which extends from lights to the full backend of post-production. The idea is to build it up so that we have one full unit dedicated to this and then pave our way as the first creative production house.
BOI: In terms of ramping up, where do you see yourself – doing co-productions, acquiring films or producing them solo?
SRK: As producers, we will start looking at a separate team to shortlist stories. With the success of Chennai Express, we are on a comfortable ground. Now we can devote time to different aspects. If Karuna needs to be looking at a smaller film, I am sure she can designate someone on a film of mine while she takes a look at the other film. We might consider acquiring it if we find something creatively appealing and thereby co-produce it as well. But then, again, we’d like to do it in a profitable manner. We don’t want to become a niche storytelling company.
BOI: Since Red Chillies is an SRK brand, how much of it is an asset and how much a liability?
KB: Not a liability at all! I think it’s a huge asset. We are the only company that hasn’t looked at him as a commodity. His contribution is that we all ideate and get clarity on projects. The marketing and positioning of a film are given much thought and his inputs. He also helps us drive the organisation in a robust way.
VM: During my stint with KKR, I was a keen observer of Red Chillies and its core competencies and people who associated with us. We’ve always told everyone on the team, if we wanted people to associate with us, we had to give them a brand. People have got to know that by now, so we let it rub off that he is part of the decision-making. And most brands have appreciated the fact that his presence can add that X-factor to anything.
The best part about him being in the company is the big peak that comes with his involvement. Sometimes, his vision is perhaps a little ahead of our times. Even when Red Chillies was launched, his ideas were copied by everyone else. I think we excel at creating high-quality content and are very commercial at the same time.
How do we take those core ideas and make them viable without completely going off on a tangent? That’s our point of evaluation!
BOI: Also, how do you balance creativity against commerce?
SRK: Let me first answer your question on the impact of my presence on Red Chillies. The reason the company is called Red Chillies Entertainments Pvt Ltd and not Shah Rukh Khan Productions is to send the message across that with Red Chillies, you don’t get a Shah Rukh free. Like ek ticket le ke do ka fayda lo. If you are not getting a free deal, it means you don’t have free accessibility to me, which means the intimidating factor is not present at all kyunki main toh aaonga hi nahi.
For instance during Krrish 3, I did not involve myself with the VFX production of the film when it was being done at my studios. In fact Rakeshji (Rakesh Roshan) told me, ‘Ek din aake dekh toh le.’ I don’t intend to facilitate work that is not mine nor create a situation where they are awkward with me being there, whether with VFX, programming or finance. They simply keep me in the loop if they feel the decision is big enough for me to know. Everyone in the company knows that I only take creative decisions.
Your creative judgement may be fantastic but it can’t be better than mine because they know I don’t function for the ideology of money. The group we have here, whether Shailja, Karuna, Karim or Blesson… the group is a strange mix of people who get most excited by the creative excellence that we achieve. But obviously there is also that sensibility that prevails in all of us and is instilled by Blesson that maybe we are going overboard.
This happened during Chennai Express when they told me that I couldn’t be a part of the budgeting decisions and 80 per cent of the work got done. I treat my films as my own and a lot of films I do here are films that many other producers would turn down. Like a RA.One… I know a lot of people, out of love and goodness, would say I was a part of it and so was Kareena, but that doesn’t make it a sure-shot profitable film.
So we all sat down and decided that we needed to make this one. There are decisions taken that are creative in nature. But I think there is a balance in terms of commercials which is creeping in and so we need to look into the financial aspect too. In my experience, when you have a production unit you can start diversifying and having more films. They are there to save your cost of production. Small decisions also are becoming more and more important for the company because I know those little things are crucial.
BOI: Keitan, can you talk about how you became part of the company?
KY: I came on board with Shah Rukh bhai during Main Hoon Na and then we did Paheli in 2005. At that time, there were no decent post-production studios, let alone VFX studios. In 2006, we opened Red Chillies VFX Studios. During the last five years, we scouted for talent across the country and turned down any outsourced work that came our way as we wanted to focus on our own plans. In the last five years, we have done 21 films.
Harry Hingorani (HH): We have an independent business model. As a service provider, we are open to doing any film that has a good story and budget.
