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Once upon a time...

Novel concept
Last Updated 23 May 2017, 18:31 IST

It is said that the telling of stories creates the real world. Keeping this close to heart is ‘The Kathe Project’, a web series on stories of people from various fields working in the Kannada art and cultural space, including actors Prakash Rai and Ramesh Aravind.

It is an initiative of ‘Poster Boy Art Studios’ and was conceptualised by Puneeth B A, popularly known as the ‘poster boy of Sandalwood’ for his Kannada minimal film posters.

Puneeth, who has been into theatre, writing, acting and directing since childhood, aims to bring out the kind of stories that got told before the age of the smartphone.

In a chat with Rajitha Menon, he talks about his project and the importance of stories.

How did you come up with such an idea?
I wanted the first venture of my production house to be something that would leave a mark. That is when the concept of evening time stories struck me, something that was totally local and had relatable connect. I discussed it with my team and we decided to start with a web series where stories from people coming from various fields would go live every day at 7.45 pm.

What kind of videos are you looking at?
We ask people to make the videos as interesting as possible. Go ask someone on the road to say an interesting life incident, capture the expressions your baby while you narrate your story, sit with your grandmother at a pani puri stall and film her recounting her experiences — it is a initiative to document funny, not-so-funny and moving incidents that have affected people.

And then?
After the person records the video, they have to upload it on their profile with the hashtag  ‘#thekatheproject’. We pick it up from there and feature it on our page.

Was the response as per your expectations?
The response has been overwhelming. We started it on April 12 with an episode of actor Prakash Rai, that got 2.6 lakh views. We have received messages from Malayalis, Tamilians, Telgites asking for subtitles because they loved the idea.
This is also the first project that generated non-film content for Facebook in Kannada at such a huge scale.

What is the role of stories according to you?
It is very important. it is time we revisit the joy of narrating stories, which was a part of our evening family time earlier. We wanted to remind people of this on the very medium they are addicted to.

What challenges did you face?
The team has worked hard to pull this off along with their routine jobs. There are days when I just felt like giving it all up because videos wouldn’t come on time or we would have to work through the night. But we motivated one another to bring out the episodes every single day without fail.

What were the stories of the celebrities like?
Prakash Rai narrated an emotionally haunting confession story from his past surrounding a friend’s death.
Ramesh Aravind narrated an inspiring story from one of his family trips from which he could draw different morals and perspectives about life.

Future plans?
I want to do some more work around the stories and explore more genres.

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(Published 23 May 2017, 15:21 IST)

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