With just four days left for the release of Siddharth Chandrashekar’s directorial debut 'Bale Pandiya', his office at T Nagar is buzzing with activity. The man behind Mitraa Media, Siddharth is constantly on the job, instructing his employees on promos and speaking over the phone about the prints of 'Bale Pandiya'.
“It’s been hectic. I’ve screened the film to about 40 people and when I saw them laugh at all the right scenes, I got very excited,” he says.
What started as a small company 12 years ago, has now grown into a creative house that provides artistic design services to corporates, hospitality and entertainment industry. “We started at a time when computers were a novelty. Within a few years, I got the opportunity to do publicity for 'Lesa Lesa'. Since then, we have worked on many films. The first ‘talking invitation’ for Santosh Subramaniam and the first ‘video invitation’ for 'Kandaswamy' were our ideas,” says the publicity designer, who feels it is tougher to work on your own production.
Though Siddharth has never worked as an assistant director, he feels his stint at publicity designing helped him. “I’ve learnt that filmmaking is not just about directing,” says Siddharth, the grandson of acclaimed director R S Mani. “I used to accompany my grandfather to film labs. I have vivid memories of those days,” he adds.
A dyslexic, Siddharth chose the path that he felt was right for him. “It’s all about accepting dyslexia and moving on in life. Each one has a different calling and I found mine in designing and direction,” says a confident Siddharth.
Produced by AGS Entertainment, ‘Bale Pandiya’ is about a loser. “Vishnu, the hero, is a loser. It’s a light-hearted film. It’s human tendency to first laugh at someone who falls. Only later do we rush to help him. The same thing happens to the hero,” says the director while screening catchy promos of the film.
‘Mamma Maapley’ took us a month to record
Singer Devan Ekambaram turns music director with Bale Pandiya. “We recorded all the songs in a couple of days, except ‘Mamma Maapley’, which took us a month to record. We don’t believe in remixing songs but we adapted the song as it was famous. This movie is no way connected to the older film,” says Siddharth.
