“Audience behaviour has long changed, and the entertainment industry is still catching up. Content got shorter, but the passion did not become smaller. We are building for the future, and we are ruthless about execution and planning,” said Karan Dayanidhi Maran of the Maran Group, who, on Thursday, announced the launch of its micro-drama platform, KadhaiShorts. The entertainment platform aims to showcase hyperlocal and culturally relevant stories in a two-minute vertical series format. The platform, which has over 100 originals in production, boasts a specially curated lineup of Tamil micro dramas spread across six different genres, and it also plans to launch shows in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, and Bengali.
Speaking at the event, vice chairman of Maran Group and founder of KadhaiShorts, Karan said, “Kadhai Club has 12,000 members, and it is a creator-first ecosystem focusing on enabling aspiring writers, actors, directors, editors, cinematographers, and creators to participate in the future of mobile-first entertainment.”
Sabarish Venkat, the CEO of KadhaiShorts, who believes this is not an experiment but today’s reality, said, “People love drama, suspense, and emotion. They want meaningful content in a short time. KadhaiShorts is about small content and big emotion. Audiences spend 45-90 minutes on their phones. This is not an experiment but a reality. Our initiative has made the idea an opportunity and has turned scrolling into storytelling.”
Breaking away from the practice of advertisements taking over the content, KadhaiShorts’ head of Brand Solutions & Promotions, Balakumaran, stressed that this micro drama platform will function in a hybrid mode. “We have modelled KadhaiShorts in a way that the stories will organically blend products with entertaining content without the product placement being in-your-face. To illustrate with an example, in KadhaiShorts, we will place products the way Tom Hanks’ Cast Away used a now very popular logistics service.”
With KadhaiShorts, creative producer Pradheesh Mugundhan advises aspiring filmmakers to prepare for the change in filmmaking grammar. “With the inception of KadhaiShorts and micro drama format, the first three seconds are your trailer, and the hookline is the hero. According to me, attention is the most valuable commodity. Having been in the creative field for over 20 years, every time a consumption model takes over another, every such development is called the final level. That is not true, storytelling only evolves.”
Veteran actor Rohini, who is making her directorial debut with Aval = Avan?, is proud to make a second debut with KadhaiShorts. “The intention behind storytelling is to pull audiences towards your story, no matter what format you decide to take. I pitched three stories, out of which one was picked, but there was scepticism about whether it would be palatable. But that’s the beauty of Gen Z. With the Gen Z audience, everything can be discussed. The challenge was the two-minute terseness, but the acting or writing has not changed. With this format, I feel happy as an actor that the focus has changed from setting the ambience to performance.”
KadhaiShorts is set to work on a pay-per-series pricing of Rs 20.
