CHENNAI: If you hate engineering, you’ll love this. For the first time in the city, a theatre group has created a web series for YouTube, that’s centered on a real life engineering dropout, Shyam Renganathan. And here’s the crazy part – Shyam will be playing himself!
Eight episodes long, the project by Stray Factory bears a simple title that is easy to relate to, Black Sheep. The trailer that went live on their Rascalas YouTube channel over the weekend. The first episode can be viewed this Wednesday, and the rest will be released one per week.
This series is one of many by other desi comics and collaborations across the country under the platform ‘Laughter Games’. But Mathivanan Rajendran, one of the founders of Stray Factory says this series will be a slice-of-life ‘urban tale’ of Shyam struggling to come into his own.
Keeping the story as true to the urban youth as possible, the dialogue is in Tamil for the conversations with Shyam’s parents and in English with his friends, the technicians have captured ‘live sound’ and a few of the scenes were even shot in Shyam’s own home in Avadi.
If you had asked a troubled Shyam two years ago, steeped in counselling sessions, he would never have guessed his story would have made for a mini-series produced for the web. With his parents played by supporting actors Jeeva Ravi (from Singham) and Janaki Sabesh (actor Vijay’s mother in Ghilli), his own parents didn’t realise the magnitude of production until a the entire crew showed up at their home for shooting.
“It’s about celebrating the ‘small wins’ in life by regular people like you and me,” sums up producer Mathivanan. “We have enough intensive dramas and colourful fiction in Indian cinema today. What we need is more urban stories like this one that we can all aspire toward.”
The first episode of Black Sheep will be uploaded on Stray Factory’s ‘Rascalas’ YouTube channel on Wednesday.