Quoted in Bold at the end..Starting he says all about TSM!
Rajan Shahi's new show, Tere Sheher Mein, is an attempt to reinvent himself. He talks to Divya Kaushik about the challenges that TV producers face today and why most experiments on the small screen fail to sustain the audience's attention
There has to be a trick to make those saas bahu dramas run successfully for years on television. Apart from Ekta Kapoor, this man surely has it. Also he is the most trusted name in the industry for creating family entertainers. Despite all this, Rajan Shahi needed a change.
The producer of famous shows like Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai (YRKKH) and Bidaai felt there was a need to reinvent himself and come up with something that reflects the change that has come over time on the small screen " the concept that caters to wider demographics, reflects family values and is an extension of his brand philosophy. So he came up with Tere Sheher Mein, the show that will replace Everest on Star Plus from March 2.
The idea of the show was conceptualised during a meeting with Star Plus CEO Uday Shankar two years ago. "I have been working on the idea for the past two years and I wanted it to be something path-breaking as I realised that somehow I have not been able to create as big and successful a show asBidaai or YRKKH. I was also told by the channel to give a new texture to the show but keep the same soul that my shows have.
So this time the pressure was more and to come up to the challenge I had set for myself I had to think differently. Therefore everything in Tere Sheher Mein is away from the tried and tested. I have worked with the fresh cast, then there is Sachin, who will be seen on the small screen after a long time and Gautami, who is making a comeback to TV with this show after a lot of convincing as she did not want to do a daily soap two years ago.
From the sets to costumes, makeup and music everything is different. I have got the makers from the ad world. Gyan Correa, whose film The Good Road is a national award-winning film and who is a renowned ad filmmaker, is one of the directors. It took me 10 or 15 meetings to get Gyan to do that.
He said that he can't do daily soaps as their treatment is so different but I told him that I have a good expertise on production designing and if he puts in his mind and ideas to that, we can do wonders. For the first time we have used different cameras and we have got Shaan to do the background music for the show," he said.
It would have been very easy for Shahi to come up with another family drama but he wanted to bear the risk that comes with experimentation. "Creativity has its fears and I am a creative producer. I have that fear that I have to keep reinventing myself otherwise I will be part of the same breed. In the TV industry, after a gap of few years new makers come and they change the entire way of presentation so even I have to move ahead with changing times," said the producer.
He appreciates experiments likeYudh and 24 on TV and says that this is a good time for industry when broadcasters are encouraging makers and are willing to give new concepts a chance. "We are experimenting with a lot of genres now and that is a healthy trend. But my biggest dilemma as a maker is that when I go to the channel they want something different but if that show doesn't get them TRPs they pull it off and I lose my money, so should I be a safe producer? This dilemma a lot of makers face and that is why we see most stories following the same pattern after a certain time. But I feel proud that my company convinces the channel to give a fair chance to different concepts. I would like to keep experimenting despite the fact that it is a risk," he said.
His show YRKKH is one of the longest running shows on TV today and he is proud of that. "That is my flagship show and I would want it to run for many more years. I have done finite shows as well but as a producer I have realised that finite stories don't work. An in-depth study reveals that the biggest problem of Indian television is the instability of shows, you develop a show for year and it shuts in two or three months so if my show is running for six years in such a scenario it is a very big thing for me," he said.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/vivacity/2015-02-19-78676.html
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