It is a matter of perception. For some, three is a crowd and for others, the same three translates to a trinity. For Team Eureka, three means many things: dreams, passion, and films. And above all, friendship.
The team has three members, who grew up together since their school days, shared the same dream of being filmmakers, and now, after years of nurturing that dream, are finally making a mark in Kerala as a promising group taking the internet by storm with their short films and skit reels over the past year.
When Devraj T R, Nandagopan P I, and Vaisakh Padmanabhan launched Team Eureka a year ago, they faced their share of blocks. All three were working professionals: Devraj, a lawyer, was with the Tata Group; Nandagopan, an ayurveda doctor, was employed in Bengaluru; and Vaisakh was an engineer.
"Our families didn’t discourage us, but they were worried. They gave us two years to try our hand at what we wanted to do. But luckily, it didn’t take two years. Our team made its mark in a year itself. It was around this time last year that we launched Eureka,” recalls Devraj.
The three friends have been together since school, with a fire for acting and a passion for films in them from as early as Class 7. “We did our first stage drama then. Later we took part in several school fests and competitions. In Class 10, the three of us acted together as the main characters in a drama,” Nandagopan reminisces.
“These two (Nandagopan and Devraj) were actors more than anything else. I was more into the technicalities. They never missed a chance to imitate others or enact scenes that fascinated them. Also, they had a way with Malayalam slang,” Vaisakh chips in.
So, it was natural that their professions did not satisfy their creative angst. “We would call one another and often speak about the frustration we felt. And also about how much we wanted to do what we longed for. We even discussed plots and content we might work on. Those ideas are still with us, and will be unravelled in our works in due course, including films,” says Devraj.
The frustration didn’t let them stay in their jobs for long and nudged them to resign and start Team Eureka.
“The name too evolved almost naturally, as with the origin of the word. We had a strong base of friends and well-wishers who constantly guided us and pushed us to think better. Even now, when we make content for our reels or short films, we run it past them and get their go-ahead. For content, it was this base we turned to — their stories, the incidents that happened with them and us, the situations we had witnessed… everything we have seen or done,” says Devraj.
The tussle between city life and small town, the sharing and caring between two families living together in a rented house in Kochi, the bonds between two friends who must part when one leaves for the Gulf — all form the themes of Eureka’s reels and shorts. Some find a similarity to Karikku, another platform that made it big on YouTube.
“It is not similar or inspired for many reasons. One is that Karikku has done exemplary work, and whatever they have done only raised the bar higher. So our content could not follow that pattern. Beyond that, what we wanted to convey was derived from our own space. We three are from Palakkad and our upbringing, life, surroundings, and what we saw and read had a profound impact on us, shaping the content we produce,” says Devraj.
Team Eureka brings out the tranquil swathe of the Valluvanadan temple ground where two friends debate belief and atheism, a driving expert teaching a naïve yet ambitious Unni Namboodiri to steer a car, or two friends barging into another’s house at noon in the hope of a good lunch served by the lady of the house — scenes that recall the Srinivasan-Mohanlal duo as Dasan and Vijayan. The smack of late ’80s and early ’90s small-town Kerala is conspicuous in Eureka productions, keeping alive a cinematic nostalgia that still fuels reels on social media. To this, the team has an answer: “We love Sathyan Anthikkad films. And the scenes we grew up with.”
Eureka’s content breathes freshness, giving it an impromptu air — but in fact, each work is well researched, discussed, and planned beforehand. “We shoot on our iPhone; Vaisakh does that honour, as well as the impeccable editing too,” says Nandagopan. Vaisakh, the technician of the lot, adds: “We usually don’t shoot at night because we don’t have supporting equipment. So most shooting is done in the mornings, except for very little work where we adjust to the available light.”
The team also has an array of actors who play roles in the shorts and films, most of whom have now become friends.
“We are now a team of about 15 or 16,” says Devraj. “There is struggle, but we don’t feel it because we totally enjoy what we do. And we also venture out — I got to work in Hridayapoorvam. Ultimately, what we do is what we love. So, at the end of the day, we feel happy, and one with ourselves,” he says, speaking for all three.