BENGALURU: Of late online satires, spoofs and web-series have become a huge hit among the masses. This has subsequently led to the the explosion in the popularity of many comedy groups such as the All India Bakchod and The Viral Fever to name a few. In such a situation, how could Karnataka be far behind?
Karnataka Entertainment Board (KEB)
Introducing the Karnataka Entertainment Board or the KEB, a satire group composing some young and very idealistic Bengalureans and Mysureans with an average age of around 27 years. Started just six months ago, some of their online spoofs have already won rave reviews and praises, not only from the local masses but from some stalwarts of the Kannada film and television fraternity.
While KEB follows a format similar to its more popular counterparts, it is contrastingly different in its aim to try and promote its content primarily to local Kannada speaking audiences. This is just a natural choice for the group, according to Sunil R, a director and scriptwriter at KEB, who has a firm belief that the humour and brand of comedy they want to promote cannot be in any other language. “Many of our team members come from Kannada medium and others like me have learnt English but still feel that the message would be disjointed if our content is presented in any other language. Besides, I am more comfortable in my mother tongue," he says. However for those who do not know the language, the videos have English subtitles.
Most of the popular comedy groups are either in English or Hindi and cater to wider masses. However, this does not bother members of the KEB. “We are clear about the direction that we have taken,” says Sunil.
No Slapstick Jokes Here
Besides, they also want to promote a brand of humour that, according to Shamanth Venugopal, an actor and scriptwriter at KEB, has not been seen in Karnataka before. “Most of the humour we see in films and television is of a slapstick variety which we do not like. What we want to promote is a more sensible kind of humour,” he says.
That is why the group gives foremost importance to two things – the quality of the videos and the script. “The content might be good but what is the use when your video is bad? We therefore concentrate a lot on our production quality. A good script and good quality of videos go together,” says Sunil. And their dedication to these two rules seems to have paid off, judging by the number of views, shares and likes their videos have got.
Weekend With Suresh
One of the most popular shows they have produced is called ‘Weekend With Suresh’, a spoof on TV star Ramesh Aravind’s chat show ‘Weekend With Ramesh’. The show takes people back on a famous celebrity’s journey towards stardom. “The necessary condition of being in the show is that you have to be a celebrity. No commoner can ever be in the show. So we decided to give a platform to the most common person in Bengaluru,” says Sunil. Their first episode of the spoof therefore saw an interview with an IT professional. The video has so far been viewed 58, 341 times on last count. “This spoof was for around 28 minutes but despite the length it held the attention of the audience and became a huge hit. It was even shared by Ramesh Arvind himself on his Twitter account and was appreciated by him,” says Nagabhushan NS, actor and a director in the group.
Likes Deficiency Syndrome
Another popular video, the first of around 10 episodes of a web series on the ill-effects of social media, called ‘Likes Deficiency Syndrome’, has been viewed around 16,000 times since it was uploaded a month ago. The first episode is a humorous take on the anxiety people feel on not receiving enough Facebook likes. Lucia director Pawan Kumar is a big fan of this episode and the group.
Beginnings and Dilemmas
Most of the KEB members are hardcore theatre enthusiasts and met at the Rangayana, a hub of theatre not only in Mysuru but throughout the state. Although their first love was films and theatre, many of them took up engineering and other courses. The love for film making continued throughout college. Except for a few, now everyone is involved in either film making or theater. “All of us faced this age-old dilemma of choosing between our passion and need,” says Sunil who himself studied instrumentation engineering. He worked in an engineering firm for around eight months and decided to have no more of it.
The Future
In the pipeline are more episodes of the web-series on social media within the next 6 months. There will be also more episodes on ‘Weekend With Suresh’. However, ultimately, it will be about making films for the group says Sunil. “These online videos are stepping stones to this goal,” he says. They are presently working on a film project and shooting is presently going on.
During their college days, members of the crew had a dream to shift the film centre of Karnataka industry from Bengaluru to Mysuru. “We had this grand plan to shift the Los Angeles of Kannada Cinema, Gandhinagar to Mysuru. But we have toned down our dreams now,” says Sunil with a laugh. They have however have not stopped dreaming.