A film is a sum total of many departments – from direction, to choreography, cinematography, acting and most importantly finance. The popular faces are actors and filmmakers, but those who hold the film together are the producer and the financiers. Their role comes under spotlight when the content they selected to back does well.
One such producer is Ajit Arora, CEO and founder of Aurora Productions, which released its first web film #377 AbNormal on ZEE5 earlier this year.
The well-established businessman and producer believes in content-driven quality work to be shown on the screen rather than just making films for the sake of finance.
“The reason I ventured into producing the web film was because I saw potential in it and the very fact that it was so relevant in today’s times. I wanted to demonstrate to the world that I am in Bollywood to bring out more out-of-the-box stories on screen and to give a delightful experience to audiences who take out time to come and watch content,” he adds.
Arora believes that content steers a project and filmmaking is a perfect platform to master this art. His first project has raised expectations and Arora hopes that he keeps treating the audience with his quality work. “I do not belong to a film background but creative content has always been something that has been closed to my heart and since I am good at business and I love content, producing was something I had to do,” Arora says.
He, however, points out that although he thinks and takes actions like a businessman, he is not in the industry to just make profit and monetise the creative space. “I have great respect for creativity. Investing in a movie just because it might make a lot of money, is not something I would do,” adds Arora, who is currently working on bringing the sequel to #377 AbNormal in a movie-format with a new storyline and new characters. The original Zee5 film starred Tanvi Azmi, Zeeshan Ayyub, Kumud Mishra, Shashank Arora and Maanvi Gagroo.
Arora aspires to foster films fuelled by superior quality content and creative thoughts. “I want to showcase stories which are a beautiful blend of the creative texture of thoughts, passionate efforts and finest performance, not necessarily by the biggies of the industry. If new age, first time actors show the potential of living the content the way I do, I know I have not made a mistake by investing in the movie,” he adds.
The businessman-producer also points out that Indian audiences are more than aware now. “They consume not only Indian content via films, serials and web series but are also watching the Hollywood space. They are well-versed with new concepts, trends and the treatment of content, so filmmakers cannot fool the audiences now,” he says. Citing an example, Arora says, “Recently the multi-starrers did not do well. It could be because the actors brought a good character to the plate, but the content did not appeal to the audience. The old way of content is not something that will stick on for long. Not just fresh but meaningful content has become the need of the hour.”
