ITV

Tag: production

  • Nitin & Nitanshi Khare Gupta’s Neelkamal Creations partners with 200 Not Out Films for television shows

    Nitin & Nitanshi Khare Gupta’s Neelkamal Creations partners with 200 Not Out Films for television shows

    MUMBAI:  Creative producers and directors Nitin Gupta and Nitanshi Khare Gupta  – the two co-founders of  Neelkamal Creations –  have announced a partnership with 200 Not Out Films to produce innovative and impactful television content. With over 31 years of experience between them as creative heads, director, producers, writers  on some of Indian television’s most prominent shows, the Guptas aims to push the boundaries of storytelling in this new venture.

    Nitin and Nitanshi  shared their enthusiasm about the collaboration on Linkedin, highlighting plans to develop, produce, and deliver fresh, engaging narratives that resonate with audiences globally.

    “Our mission is to create exceptional stories that combine creativity and professionalism, setting new benchmarks in television production,” they said.

    200 Not Out Films, known for its dynamic approach to filmmaking, has an impressive portfolio of over 150 TVCs and short films. The company has worked with top brands such as Colgate, ICICI Bank, Royal Challenge, and Chevrolet. Its most notable achievement is Sachin – A Billion Dreams, an acclaimed biopic on cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, directed by award-winning London-based filmmaker James Erskine.

    This partnership between Neelkamal Creations and 200 Not Out Films promises to bring a new wave of creativity to the television industry. Gupta encouraged fans to “stay tuned” for updates on upcoming projects, signalling exciting developments ahead for the entertainment landscape.

     

  • YRF recruits Ketan-O-Rana as sr manager production & post-prod supervisor

    YRF recruits Ketan-O-Rana as sr manager production & post-prod supervisor

    MUMBAI: He’s an alumnus of Amity University where he graduated in  journalism, and Whistling Woods where he completed his film production and direction diploma. 14 years later  Ketan-O-Rana recently  joined YRF – Yash Raj Films  as senior manager production and post production supervisor.

    Along the way he worked in various capacities in companies such as Equinox Films, Balaji Telefilms, Ramesh Sippy Entertainment either in production or creative. NFDC beckoned and he joined it as a creative director for a couple of years until he was called by Dar Motion Pictures as a writer director – once again for a couple of years.

    Bambai Dreams was his next stop, followed by B62 studios where he rose to become post- production supervisor. He had a six month stint working at Mukta Arts where he worked as an associate on Subhash Ghai’s film. He finally went independent founding his own banner Postman Pictures which he ran for 12 years. He then decided may be it would be good to be employed someplace and joined YRF.

    “I’ve spent years on sets where chaos meets creativity, navigating the showdown between vision and reality. Now, as post production supervisor at Yash Raj Films, I leverage my background as an associate director, producer, and screenwriter. I thrive on the details and those fleeting moments that elevate a story—whether it’s crafting explosive action sequences or executing the cut that just hits right. The reel never stops rolling, and I’m committed to making every frame count,” Ketan  said on Linkedin while announcing his appointment at YRF. 

  • Weekend Unwind with: Locomotive Global Media business affairs head Kanupriya A Iyer

    Weekend Unwind with: Locomotive Global Media business affairs head Kanupriya A Iyer

    Mumbai: With another weekend upon us, it is time to unwind with the latest Q&A edition of Indiantelevision.com’s Weekend Unwind—a series of informal chats that peek into the minds of corporate executives through a fun lens in an attempt to get to know the person behind the title a little better.

    In this week’s session, we have Locomotive Global Media’s business affairs head and senior producer Kanupriya A. Iyer.

    As head of business affairs and senior producer, Kanupriya works closely with co-founder and principal Sunder Aaron to lead Locomotive Global Media’s film division as well as oversee all business operations. Iyer is responsible for driving the company’s growth through all aspects of content development and production required to scale up the company’s position and meet its objective to become the leading content production company in India.

    With an experience of 12 years in the Indian entertainment industry, both as a management executive and producer, Kanupriya combines her sharp business acumen with a belief that the world can be changed, one film at a time. Her in-depth expertise in content and business development makes Kanupriya a key asset for Locomotive Global Media.

    So, without further ado, here it goes…

        Your mantra for life

    Very little is needed to make a happy life; everything else is a bonus.

        A book you are currently reading / plan to read

    I am rereading “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson.

        Your fitness mantra, especially during the pandemic

    I believe yoga is best for both body and mind.

        Your comfort food

    Anything warm and vegetarian served in a bowl.

        When the chips are down, a quote or philosophy that keeps you going.

    It won’t matter in five years.

        Your guilty pleasure

    Big tub of popcorn and a cheesy Bollywood film.

        When was the last time you tried something new?

     I tried artificial nails yesterday 🙂

        A life lesson you learnt the hard way

    Every story has multiple perspectives; yours is one of them.

        What gets you excited about life?

    I acknowledge my privilege to be able to make choices every day that shape my future.

        What’s on top of your bucket list?

    Northern lights in all their glory.

        If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?

    Don’t waste time impressing people; just have fun.

        One thing you would most like to change about the world

     Living life like a checklist with complete disregard to nature.

        An activity that keeps you motivated or charged during tough times

    I love reading and playing video games.

        What lifts your spirits when life gets you down?

    Cooking a multi-course meal for the family.

        Your go-to stress buster

     Binge watching tele-shopping ads.

  • Dandelooo grabs worldwide distribution rights for ‘Our Piggy’

    Dandelooo grabs worldwide distribution rights for ‘Our Piggy’

    Mumbai: Emmy Award-winning French animation production and distribution company Dandelooo has struck a deal with the Emmy Award-winning Czech film and television production company Bionaut for the new adorable comedy series Our Piggy.

    The deal gives Dandelooo exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the 2D animated series targeted at 2–4-year-olds produced by Bionaut, the producers of the highly successful Hungry Bear Tales series.

    Created and based on the book by Jaromir Plachy, nominated for the Golden Pinwheel, Young Illustrators Competition Award 2021, Our Piggy discovers the magic of ordinary objects and invites children into his extraordinary world through inquisitiveness and play.

    Commenting on the deal, Dandelooo co-founder Emmanuèle Pétry Sirvin said, “This new series is based on the director’s observation of his own child, which explains the charm of this delightful character. I fell in love immediately with this series, which illustrates the well-known quote ‘keep it simple.’ Bionaut is one of the most talented studios in Central Europe and we are proud to distribute their programmes internationally.”

    Dandelooo is a French award-winning creative company based in Paris dedicated to the development, production, and distribution of original and ambitious animated programs. It runs its own studio, Ooolala, in la Cartoucherie (Valence, France) and has a sales office in Barcelona, Spain, and Milan, Italy.

  • Kyndryl India appointed as technology partner of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India

    Kyndryl India appointed as technology partner of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India

    Mumbai: Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) recently announced its exclusive collaboration with IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl, to elevate its IT and security transformation journey across HMSI’s manufacturing plants.

    Currently, Kyndryl manages infrastructure services for plant production applications, enterprise and dealer management systems for all the dealers.

    Bringing operational efficiency with an agile and improved customer service experience, the company’s renewed alliance with Kyndryl will improve infrastructure manageability and uptime through increased automation as well as enhance the company’s cybersecurity and resiliency.

    Further enhancing HMSI’s business applications and IT systems’ availability, the new partnership will integrate an on-demand disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) set-up for minimal outage and production loss during a crisis impacting HMSI’s primary data centre.

    Speaking on the association, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India managing director, president & CEO Atsushi Ogata said, “At HMSI, we are glad to announce our exclusive technological partnership with Kyndryl India. Their in-depth knowledge of HMSI’s business functions pillaring upon complex IT systems is what precisely makes them a trusted advisor for our operations in India. Moving forward, the new synergy will enable us with better business availability and operations predictability while infusing a more agile IT environment that serves our customers and partners better.”

    Sharing his thoughts on the partnership, Kyndryl India president Lingraju Sawkar said, “In an increasingly competitive ecosystem staying ahead of the curve and anticipating business and operational challenges is paramount. Kyndryl’s proven expertise in infrastructure management, automation, and cloud transformation, coupled with a deep understanding of HMSI’s critical operations allows us to anticipate and structure a resilient and agile framework for the future. We are excited to expand on our collaboration with HMSI as they further unlock the potential of true digital transformation within their India operations.”

    During a disaster, Kyndryl’s cloud resiliency orchestration tool will bring HMSI’s primary data centre to a fully operational state in a matter of seconds, and its resiliency architecture will span seismic zones for added flexibility to systems during a customer demand surge.

  • Popular show ‘In Lieu of Flowers’ sold in Italy

    Popular show ‘In Lieu of Flowers’ sold in Italy

    Mumbai: ComediHa! Distribution and Zone3 have announced the sale of the adapted format of the popular show In Lieu of Flowers to Italian production company Stand By Me.

    Produced by Zone3 and shot in front of a live audience, In Lieu of Flowers is a variety show with a twist where celebrity guests attend their own fully improvised funeral services, upending the darkness of death with comedy and drama.

    Hosted by Patrice L’Écuyer for the past 12 seasons on ICI Radio-Canada Télé, each episode features the recently departed and the people closest to them.

    The audience is presented with a short fictional account of the circumstances surrounding the person’s death. Their loved ones then take turns in the spotlight delivering their eulogies—a mix of monologues, variety acts (singing, dancing), comedy sketches and testimonials—all dedicated to the deceased. The guest star stands alone in the corner of the stage, watching their memorial service as they’re confronted with the ups and downs of their life and what a colourful life they’ve led!

  • Blink Digital forays into NFTs and metaverse

    Blink Digital forays into NFTs and metaverse

    Mumbai: Blink Digital has announced its full-fledged footing into the decentralised world that will cover metaverse, NFTs and web3 applications. The integration of virtual reality, augmented reality with social media is laying the foundation for the open and transparent ecosystem to connect and interact with each other.

    Blink Digital has launched some of the successful NFT projects and metaverse activations on platforms such as OpenSea, Rarible and Decentraland.

    This move is in alignment with their vision to bring the best to the brands and enhance the connectivity between brands and audiences. This agency foresees 300 per cent of the rise in revenue as they foray into the new vertical, according to the statement.

    As far as the growth is concerned, Blink Digital has seen 100 per cent of growth ensuring great revenue momentum from web3 vertical. In terms of the new mandate wins, the client has grown by 60 per cent  this year, the agency said.

    Blink Digital also executed the successful OnePlus 10 model launch on Amazon in Decentraland. Leveraging blockchain technology, the agency has helped materialise numerous to sell and trade NFTs. They have been providing end-to-end services from strategy and development to deployment and promotion to the brands. The agency is working as a guiding light for brands to make an early stage impact of  NFTs and metaverse and to become a trendsetter.

    Talking about venturing into the new vertical, Blink Digital director of technology Amer Ahmad said, “The idea of bringing three-dimensional experiences had started with VR devices and it has come full circle with the innovations and advancements like Web3 and Metaverse. The buzz has already concluded that the newly found virtual world is inevitable. Blink Digital lies at the intersection of creativity, innovation and the power of the internet, so our foray into Metaverse focused marketing came naturally to us.”

    “The team at Blink has always challenged the status quo and keeps innovating to serve the best to our clients. We have already started working with a few brands for their NFTs and Metaverse campaigns. We believe that metaverse will play a notable role in the next decade of advertising and we would like to to be ready before it becomes highly democratised both in terms of creation and monetisation opportunities,” he added.

  • Abhijay Prakash joins Blumhouse as president

    Abhijay Prakash joins Blumhouse as president

    The former studio executive, Abhijay Prakash has been named the new president of Jason Blum’s Blumhouse, an American television and production company, according to a news report. He will oversee all business aspects of the production house and will be succeeding veteran executive Charles Layton. 

    Layton will become vice-chairman of Blumhouse and stay on for two years in a strategic and advisory role. 

    Prakash served Universal Filmed Entertainment Group as president. Earlier, he was the chief operating officer at Focus Features and then DreamWorks Animation.

    “From my vantage point at Universal over the years, it was clear that nobody else in the business was as adept at figuring out how to create value from the content as the Blumhouse team,” Prakash said in a statement.

    Speaking on the new development, Layton said, “We are thrilled because it felt like the stars aligned for Abhijay to join us at a time when I was ready to pull back from the day to day and yet remain active, part-time as vice-chairman.”

    Blumhouse is expected to release five movies in 2022. “The Black Phone” from director Scott Derrickson, “Halloween Ends”, BJ Novak’s directorial debut, “Vengeance” and “DASHCAM”.

    On the TV front, Blumhouse produced shows such as NBC’s The Thing About Pam, starring Renee Zellweger, the documentary Our Father and Netflix’s Worst Roommate Ever.

  • aha Studio and Applause Entertainment partner to produce four bi-lingual web series

    aha Studio and Applause Entertainment partner to produce four bi-lingual web series

    Mumbai: Telugu OTT platform aha on Monday launched an independent content and IP creation entity – aha Studio, which has also entered into a partnership with Applause Entertainment to co-produce four premium bi-lingual series.

    Their first offering- a web series titled ‘Half-Lion’ will tell the story of former prime minister P V Narsimha Rao. Based on the book with the same name written by Vinay Sitapati, the series will be released in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil, the streaming platform announced at an event held on Monday.

    aha Studio will work on projects at a Pan-India level and tell stories that have their origins in the South. The entity will self-finance these projects and license it to various platforms once the production is finished. “The studio is an initiative to create content at an arms-length from the platform. Doing this helps us work with the top talent in the country. We’re looking for projects that have a Pan-India appeal but have their origins in the South, that’s our USP,” said aha CEO Ajit Thakur.

    “For us, this partnership is about collaborating with a strong creative and production company,” said Applause Entertainment chief executive officer Sameer Nair. “Geetha Arts is one of the largest content creation companies in South India and have been making movies and series for many years, and they’ve launched the platform aha. In order for us to do bigger, better and brighter things, we will have to collaborate with other content studios. This is not the age of going solo. Lot of creative people should work together on projects.”

    Elaborating on the new web series, Nair said, “We enjoy telling stories of this kind. These stories are increasingly being told in the language that they deserve to be told. ‘Scam 1992’ was equal part Hindi and equal part Gujarati. Once we’ve made it, I’m sure there will be a lot of people interested in it because it is an important story to tell.”

    The series will be helmed by National Award-winning director Prakash Jha known for his socio-political films such as ‘Gangaajal’, ‘Apaharan’, ‘Rajneeti’ and ‘Aarakshan’ and web series ‘Ashram’. “Hardly a small percentage of today’s generation knows about Rao, the ”man who changed India”. He brought about changes, systems in our polity, economy, society and everyday life in our country which now is completely irreversible,” said Jha.

    aha Studio had acquired the rights to the book ‘Half-Lion’ and approached Applause Entertainment that has the expertise in telling layered narratives with an ensemble cast. The content studio headed by Nair recently bagged 12 Filmfare OTT awards for ‘Scam 1992’ their biopic on stockbroker Harshad Mehta.

    “It’s been a remarkable journey with aha in Telugu so far,” said Geetha Arts managing director and aha promoter Allu Aravind at the event. “We are overwhelmed with the love and support we’ve received globally from the audience, who’ve made aha one of the fastest growing apps in India within a span of two years.  In what is another pioneering effort from aha, we believe aha Studio will help us work with the best creative talent in the country to present world class entertainment to our global audience.”

    Telugu OTT platform aha is set to launch in Tamil language next year. The platform which has grown by 13+ million downloads in the last year and a half will increase its content investments in 2022 and launch new unscripted formats including ‘Indian Idol Telugu’.

  • Cinedigm acquires Indo-American rom-com, ‘7 Days’

    Cinedigm acquires Indo-American rom-com, ‘7 Days’

    Los Angeles: Cinedigm announced that it has acquired all North American rights to the romantic comedy 7 Days starring Karan Soni (Deadpool, Office Christmas Party) and Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers, Bad Education). The film is Roshan Sethi’s feature directorial debut who, along with Soni, co-wrote it.

    It also features Gita Reddy (Orange Is The New Black), Zenobia Shroff (The Big Sick), Aparna Nancherla (The Great North), and Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) and is produced by the Duplass Brothers. The movie follows two, young Indian-Americans, Ravi (Soni) and Rita (Viswanathan), who are ideological opposites but are set up by their traditional Indian parents on a pre-arranged date. The story begins to unfold when a shelter-in-place mandate is issued as the COVID outbreak intensifies and Ravi is forced to spend the night at Rita’s.

    Sethi, whose previous projects fell into more of the drama genre, explained that “Karan, who was born and raised in India, introduced me to the comedy world. So many stories about the immigrant experience are dark and tortured but the truth is that they can be very funny. We think 7 Days is a love story you haven’t seen before rooted in the hilarity and warmth of Indian-American culture.”

    “It is a character-driven film where more of the goodness and positive aspects of what you need to face during times of uncertainty is explored. Roshan knows how to craft a good story and that was evident in its execution,” said Cinedigm chief content officer Yolanda Macias. “Karan Soni and Geraldine Viswanathan bring impressive comedic timing and genuine emotion to their roles. We are thrilled to share this festival favorite with audiences everywhere.”

    “Having worked with Karan when he was an actor on ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ and later during his Directorial Debut in ‘Room 104’, I was thrilled when he and Roshan brought us this project,” said executive producer Duplass. “7 Days represents millions of stories, not only of where you were when this hell of a year happened, but who you were with when everything shifted. I think audiences will see themselves in these characters because they represent a real part of all of us, and hopefully, they are left with a feel-good high from this hilarious, unique, heartfelt story.”

    After the film’s World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, 7 Days went on to screen at festivals around the world including the Bentonville Film Festival (Best Narrative Feature), San Diego Asian Film Festival (Best Narrative Feature), Naples International Film Festival (Best First Feature), BFI London and the Nashville Film Festival. Sethi, Soni, and Viswanathan will next be honored in the New American Perspectives program at the Hawaii International Film Festival. This recognition celebrates immigrant contributions in cinema and the three filmmakers will also present a master class on their collaboration and their work in film and television during this time.

    Cinedigm is eyeing an early 2022 US release date for 7 Days in theatres and on streaming. Worldwide distribution rights are still being negotiated.

    Earlier this year, Cinedigm, the leading independent streaming entertainment company serving enthusiast fan bases, announced the formation of Cinedigm India after it finalised the acquisition of India-based, FoundationTV, a comprehensive video streaming platform provider. Cinedigm channels will launch in the region in early 2022 with plans to establish Cinedigm India as a key content distribution and licensing entity in India and all of Southeast Asia. This includes the expansion of Cinedigm’s current streaming channels and services, as well as the development of future, regionally focused services across AVOD/SVOD and free-ad, supported television video streaming platforms.