There are no restrictions in the way we can tell stories: Ridhima Lulla, Eros Group

COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench in the works of the creative industry, especially films. With production coming to a grinding a halt due to the nationwide lockdown, shoots can't happen outdoors. But that doesn't mean they can't be shot indoors. The creative minds at Eros Now have already found ways to bypass these obstacles, even under the present-day circumstances, and have found more creative ways to produce shows.

Despite the lockdown, Eros Now has successfully managed to bring out a new web show A Viral Wedding made in lockdown. The network’s first quickie was conceptualized and executed during the lockdown was directed and written by Raj & DK. The show, comprising 8 episodes of 9 minutes each, was launched on 9 May on the platform. Impressively, all the actors involved in the series have shot their portions themselves on phones and GoPros. In a conversation with exchange4media, the group chief content officer Ridhima Lulla shares what went into making the series under lockdown, its challenges and much more. 

Edited Excerpts: 

How challenging was it to train the actors to shoot their portions themselves on phones and GoPros?  

As a team, we were very excited about the idea and we wanted to present this unique show right during the lockdown period.  

While the story was conceptualized and written during the early days of lockdown, the preparation for the shoot took three to four days. All actors had to do detailed rehearsals, which were then shared for the final shoot. Each of the actors shot within the confines of their homes and from different cities as well. The filming was done in 8-9 days in the first week of April and the post-production, editing and music etc. were all completed by the end of April.

The actors prepared for their scenes and finalized their looks and their reactions for each scene.

Sometimes the challenge was to get their reactions right and some scenes had to be reshot to match the audio and the lights. Overall, we ensured that visually it all looked the same.

There was honestly little room for many challenges with a determined talent powerhouse packed team. As creative people, we are very much used to artistically expressing ourselves by brainstorming in each other’s presence, so that was one challenge we overcame as a team.

How cost-effective was shooting this web series indoors vis-a-vis outdoors?

Weddings in India are an elaborate affair and an actual shoot of the wedding with the scale would have been 5-7X of the cost. But the intent of this creative was to adjust to this new normal and test the extent of creativity. The writing and the performances in a lockdown situation are trickier and hence our focus was to drive a strong narrative. 

This was the first web series Eros has done under lockdown. Since you did things differently, what were your learnings?

It was a learning for the entire team, this being the first time the industry has delivered a show in a lockdown situation. The entire process -- from script to screenplay, from production to dialogue delivery and edit -- has to be planned for very differently as under normal circumstances. It is more difficult for the talent to be able to do reaction shots due to the non-physicality of the shoot and hence they need to dig deep into their talent and they and the directors have done a phenomenal job. 

Since production at a halt due to COVID-19, do you think producing shows like this is going to be new normal?  Also, are you looking at producing more such content?

 It has been wonderful to see the creative industry coming together to support and empower one another and share their deep-vested interests in stories. As a platform and studio, we are constantly trying to find unique and safe ways to entertain our audience. Whilst production is currently at a halt, it gives us an opportunity to re-invent how we create, and we realized that there are no restrictions in the way we can tell stories. We have a lot more exciting originals coming in the next few months.

What will be your content strategy for Eros Group as going forward? 

Like I said, as a platform, we have a lot of exciting originals and films coming in the next few months. We have lined up some highly anticipated content like Flesh, created by Siddharth Anand, starring Swara Bhaskar, and some surrounding our iconic IPs such as Metro Park and Date Gone Wrong. 

With the Hollywood partnership, we believe we can create a premium tier of OTT. So Eros Now is our current OTT, by June we will also be launching something called Eros Now Prime, which will be targeted towards the upper demographic. There, other than the STX content and premium content, we have also signed up for a partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal and we will be utilising their content. 

As a studio, we also have an exciting range of movies, which we had planned to release this year, featuring actors such as Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and Rana Daggubati. They are movies that are completed or are near completion. So, we believe as and when this (the lockdown) is lifted, we will have some really exciting movies coming out in multiple genres, which will appeal to the audiences. We have a very exciting upcoming slate which we are eager to announce, but we are first waiting for the regulatory approvals (for the merger), which should take four to six weeks. We expect that while announcing the closing, we will also showcase the content slate for the next year at least. As a group, we are excited to be investing in relatable, global stories.