'Wasn't the song good?'

New Trend:

Today, marketing has become such a necessity for films that no actor or director can afford to take short cuts with it.

Some film-makers, however, have found a new way to tell the world about their upcoming flicks — with the help of cellphones.

These days, if you call any actor on his mobile, you can hear the caller tune which is, most of the time, a song from his upcoming movie.

Some of the stars consider this as one of the smartest ways to bring the attention of the caller towards their films. Tharun Chandra, who is looking forward to the release of Gaana Bajaana, has set his hello tune with a beautiful track Nanu Ega Nanena and says that every caller has been appreciating the song and showing interest in buying the audio CDs.

“Actually, for the last three years, I had not changed my caller tune, which was Om Namah Shivah. Director Prashanth wanted all the actors to have a song from Love Guru as their caller tune during the release of the film.

But as my other movie, Parichaya, was also up for release, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone and hence stayed neutral.”

“However, this time, Prashanth didn’t give up and set the tune from Gaana Bajaana,’’ he says.

Earlier, Tharun used to have different caller tunes, which were funny and unusual.
“I tried all those strange sounds some years ago. When I had such unusual tunes, people would ask me where I got them from, which I didn’t reveal. However, today I expect my callers to say good things about the song,’’ he laughs.

Actress Haripriya, who has her hands full with Telugu and Tamil projects, is quite confused in this regard. “Now, my hello tune is Mila Milana from my Telugu movie Takita Takita. My Tamil movie with Arjun Sarja will also be releasing in a couple of days and so I had to change my caller tune.

But Takita Takita is doing well and I am totally confused. I think I will keep the current hello tune unchanged but will set the Tamil film tune for my other number,” she says.

Earlier also, whenever she had a new release, Haripriya updated her hello tunes like other actors.

Music director Harikrishna, who is known for his catchy songs, sees this trend in a different perspective. According to him, the caller tune mania is affecting the audio market considerably.

“Now, movie audio CDs are printed with caller tune codes through which one can get the songs on his or her cellphone.

There is a need to inspire people to buy original CDs rather than luring them to caller tunes. I have never used any such hello tunes and don’t support them,” he says.
Interestingly, his songs are doing brisk business in the caller tune market and people are ready to pay anything for his songs.