Hectic year ahead for makers of web series

After a slow start, Bengaluru is producing eight web series this year.

The number of web series Bengaluru is producing is on the rise.

Pradeepa, RJ, and co-founder of Sakkath Studios, is driving the web series market in Karnataka. He says seven to eight web series will be released this year.

Kannada web series are as yet not available on online streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

R J Pradeepa

Sakkath Studio is out to change that, Pradeepa says.

‘Loose Connection’ was the first ever professional full-fledged web series in Kannada. The studio is now shooting ‘Hate You Romeo’ starring Disha Madan and Aravind Iyer.

“This is also the first south Indian web series to be completely shot in a foreign land,” he says.

The web series format is best to reflect on reality, he says, arguing for more gritty stories.

“The content in Kannada is not global now. Our target audience is mostly the people of Mandya and Mysuru, and hence people in other places do not connect with it,” he says.

The success of KGF has made all platforms look at the Kannada industry with respect, he observes.

“Content travels and so, if we come up with more global content, we will be able to place ourselves in a global picture,” he says.

Pradeepa believes the directors of ‘Loose connection’ and ‘Hate You Romeo’, Haseen Khan and Esham Khan, have set the standards in Kannada web series.

“These days short films are being divided into parts and uploaded on YouTube as web series. This ruins the entire category of web series. When Netflix or Amazon considers this as content from these regions, they assume we are not yet ready and hesitate to invest in us,” he says.

Vinayak Joshi, known for his web series ‘Joshelay’, feels that web-series makers in Kannada are only looking at Amazon and Netflix.

Confessing that making a web series is like going on a suicide mission, he says, “There are no quick returns as many people think. And, in the past year, the digital market has actually shrunk.”

He feels access to streaming platforms depends on “finding the right agents.”

“Stop, and think if you are approaching the right person. Even though you have good content, there are agents who have no idea about how to sell a product,” he says.

Co-founder of WeMove Theatre, Abhishek Iyengar says the web series idea is not new to Kannadigas. “We had many teleseries aired on Doordarshan, even before the concept of the web series was introduced. The famous Malgudi Days was a 50-episode teleseries and was no different from any web series. The only thing is that we couldn’t access it anytime, like we can with a web series,” he says.

The main problem is that web series makers are not investing in writers. Writers are the backbone of any web series. It is a writer’s medium and not like theatre, which is a director’s medium,” he observes.

Ruling out the language barrier, he says, “Narcos is in Spanish language and it has the maximum views in India because of its content.”

Interested?

Sakkath Studio is inviting applications from web series makers. For details, mail [e-mail].