A different, viable kind of Kannada cinema is slowly taking shape with new age directors coming out with stories that are rooted in reality. To name a few, directors like Pawan Kumar (Lucia),Suni (Simpleagi Ondhu Love Story), BM Giriraj (Jatta) and Santosh (Gombegala Love) have started the trend. The latest flick that is currently roaring at the box office is 6-5=2, a horror thriller. The film has mostly newcomers and is silently making waves at the box office without any promotion whatsoever. Currently it is ranked ninth among popular movies and has been noticed even by the non-Kannadiga audience. The film is running to packed houses in 70 theatres in Karnataka and is also running successfully in almost 16 theatres across Bangalore even in the third week of its release. The credit goes to director Ashok and his team. “I cannot still believe that my movie is a hit or maybe, the horror element did the magic,” says Ashok and adds, “Jokes apart, the audience connected with the characters of the film. Secondly, the movie has come out very naturally. Moreover, it has a touch of comedy that complements the horror scenes,” he explains. This horror movie also features on the list of flicks made on a shoe string budget. “My budget was just `70 lakh including shooting expenses and distribution,” says Ashok, whose magic has worked at the box office with cash registers ringing up to `2 crore. “I have been getting calls from other language producers for dubbing rights in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. That apart, there is a lot of appreciation coming in from the Kannada film fraternity. Actor Puneeth Rajkumar called me and said that I have done a good job. Director Yograj Bhat, Ramesh Aravind and a few others have appreciated and said it was a fantastic movie,” Ashok adds.
CONCEPT OF 6-5=2
After completing his engineering and working in a banking firm, Ashok decided to quit his job and plunge into the film world. He worked as an assistant director for nearly five years before he came up with his first independent assignment. “ T h e c o n c e p t of my film came about when I was interacting with a security guard of the forest department who revealed that a group of four youngsters who went on a trek never returned. This story stayed with me and two months later when I watched Blair Witch Project, the idea triggered again and I thought I could do something like this in Kannada,” explains Ashok
GENRE THAT CLICKED
In the film, Ashok has also experimented with found footage, a genre of film making where a considerable portion of the film is presented as if shot on personal video cameras. “Films like Paranormal Activity, Quarantine, Clovefield are of this genre and I employed this technique in my film. We implemented shaky camera movements and made the actors speak their lines and characters in a casual way. Even the background scenes, the greenery, the forest and the woods add to the film,” he says.
HEALTHY HORROR
This director who brings in just five years of experience feels that continuous horror scenes in any film are definitely bore the audience and therefore, chose to add humour. “I call this a ‘pleasant’ horror movie. The actors in the film have a background in theatre. The film clicked because of the effort of the entire team but the comical characterisation by Vijay Chander take the cake. We rehearsed for nearly a month after which it took another 25 days to do the actual shot. However, there were other practical difficulties during the shooting especially in the forest locations. Somehow we pulled it off,” he concluded. Ask about his next film and Ashok says, “Please give me a script and it has to be something unusual in the making.”