The winning ‘ad’vantage
KOCHI: Ad filmmaker Harri Nair is buoyant. He recently won four awards instituted by The Advertising Club Bangalore — no mean feat considering that over 850 entries were submitted from across the country.
Harri’s ad firm, ITV agency, based in Kochi, won gold awards in the media, entertainment and sports category, and silver in the regional category for its ad film for Amrita TV; silver in the health and education category for its ad on Gopinath Muthukad’s Different Arts Centre; and bronze in the corporate video category for its film on Microlabs Scans and Diagnostics, based in Pathanamthitta.
Harri is no stranger to success. Even when the concept of a signature song was unheard of in the Malayalam film industry, Harri came out with one for the Lal Jose directorial ‘Neelathamara’ (2009). Harri says the experience helped him while creating ad films.
He also says he tries not to go by the typical format. “The normal way of shooting an advertisement is preparing a storyboard with models airdropped to the location. Even the way they smile is scripted,” says Harri.
“Our sketchy storyboard is just to show clients. During shoots, we don’t use the storyboard at all. While there will be a broad script, we improvise during the shoot, like some movies are shot. That’s why our ads are grounded, more realistic,” he says. In the films for Amrita TV and Different Arts Centre, there was no template script.
In the Amrita TV ad, there were 68 junior artists playing different roles. “Barring Sneha of Karikku fame, who plays the lead character, and Lal, another artist, all are residents of Kuttanad where the film was shot. We roped in the guy from a tea shop, boat rowers, the wayside shopkeeper and even students of a local dance school,” Harri explains.
The film shows a newly-married girl, as she gets ready to go to her husband’s place from her home, saying something in her parents’ ears. Next, we see her relatives taking big boxes of cars to her husband’s house. However, when she turns on the TV at the house, all the boxes disappear. “The aim is to show viewers that in one package, they get various programmes,” says Harri.
The film was shot in a sequence, the bride and groom are walking from the girl’s residence, then they are on a boat and then in a car. “Though it was not planned, it can be interpreted as human’s evolution from walking on foot to travelling in machines,” Harri says. The film has crossed 20 lakh views on YouTube.
For Muthukad’s Different Arts Centre, the mandate was to make an explanatory video that would give people an idea about the work done at the Thiruvananthapuram-based non-profit organisation.
The story is told through the perspective of Asna, a wheelchair-bound child with spinal muscular atrophy from Kozhikode, who is visiting the centre. “The message is conveyed through Asna’s reactions when she spends a day at the institute,” Harri says. “Muthukad sir asked me for the script, and I told him that there’s no need for one. We’ll shoot. He knows me since 2000. I directed a film on his International Magic Convention in Thiruvananthapuram. So, he agreed,” Harri says.
Harri and the team spent five days shooting the video with 120-odd children at the centre, capturing their joy, stubbornness, sadness, and ecstasy. “The kids became so friendly that on the last day, it was difficult for both them and us to say goodbye,” he says. Harri feels ad films these days are mostly created for social media and cinema halls.
“Now, more people watch advertisements on social media than on the TV. Though branded as a TV commercials, these are mainly uploaded on the company’s social media sites. TV ads also have time restrictions; they have to be around 10 to 20 seconds,” he says. In contrast, Amrita’s ad made for social media was 1.5 minutes (90 seconds) long, while the explanatory video for Muthukad’s Different Arts Centre is of nine minutes.