Sekhar Kammula's school generally caters to NRI audiences, they say. What's your comment? What was their response to this film?
Saikiran Adivi: It was good. ...There's no particular set of audience called "NRI audience", I feel. Those people outside India may have a feeling that they miss India. It's a feeling like coming home for a festival when they watch such films with the staunchly Indian locales and culture. It's a happy reminder of their sweet memories. ...I never traveled outside India and so I don't know how well I can understand their feelings but Sekhar Kammula can understand better since he lived abroad.
NaChaKi: I agree, as someone staying outside India myself! BTW, why is it that Village-lo Vinayakudu was not released all over the state? There was this comment in a section of the media that "Village-lo Vinayakudu is not in villages"...
Saikiran Adivi: Hmm, yeah, we couldn't release it in deep interiors of the state. A film that stars, say, NTR or Ramcharan or someone like them can be a crowdpuller in C centers also, but I didn't think we have that edge for our film. We did release it in all centers - cities, towns, and villages - where Vinayakudu was released. We'd possibly go deeper into all areas when a positive talk spreads in two to three weeks.
NaChaKi: What prompted you venture into production right after your debut film?
Saikiran Adivi: I always had the idea of getting into film production. If I had money or fame back then, I'd have produced even Vinayakudu myself. Even if I had a name for myself, I could have put that in as an investment and got money to produce a film, but that wasn't obviously the case for my debut project. ...My friend Mahi returned from a marketing job in New Zealand while I was working on Vinayakudu. We both started "Moon Water Pictures Pvt. Ltd." and brought in corporate tieups for films like Yuvatha, Vinayakudu, etc. Our actual idea was to produce films but we took off with these initially. When Vinayakudu was nearing completion, Mahi came up with the idea of making a sequel and I said we could try it out when that film comes up as a success. And then, we thought we could produce it ourselves too.
NaChaKi: Did you actually approach Prem Movies (which produced Vinayakudu) or did you want to produce it yourselves because it's Mahi's idea to make the sequel?
Saikiran Adivi: I'd have produced my second film myself in any case, whether it was a sequel to my debut film or not. There was this satisfaction, freedom, and flexibility in an own production. Even if we spend Rs. 10 from a producer's pocket, we sometimes may not get the same satisfaction as spending hard-earned Re. 1 from our own pocket! ...We can take our own decisions when we produce the film ourselves. For example, we released the audio CD for less than Rs. 10. We made the decision on the spot! If the producer was different, such a bold step might not even be possible and the discussions would have taken 15 days at the least, in any case, and the idea would get stale by then!
True! And so, tell me more about the audio which was offered at a sensational price too!
Saikiran Adivi: ...When we were planning to sell our audio rights, I took appointment with someone at an audio company near RTC X Roads. When I went there at the said time, he left by then and when I called him from there, he asked me to leave the CD with the security personnel and that he'd get back to me after listening to the songs. I was hurt and I told curtly that I wanted to do the business with him in a professional manner and that's not how I'd want it done and walked out of there without giving my CD. I really felt very bad thinking how cheap creativity was seen to be! We even thought we'd not sell it to anyone, and later approached my close friend Sridhar of Madhura Audio Entertainers with our package - Rs. 9.98 per audio CD, with Reliance SIM card free, etc. - ...With good content in the album, we were confident that the idea of a CD for Rs. 10 would surely work, and there was this attractive package. We released 50,000 audio CDs first and later released a batch of 1,00,000 more!
NaChaKi: Being a writer-director yourself, how did you manage the budget as the producer? How could you make a movie in a shoestring budget of less than 1.5 crores?
Saikiran Adivi: It's all in the planning. The logic is that we should know our target before venturing and then we can do all in our reach to achieve the target. Suppose I want to go from Hyderabad to Vizag. I can take a flight, or reserve my ticket in a train, or go by bus, or I can even go to Vijayawada first and borrow money from a friend and go if I don't have enough money with me! If we have that target of going to Vizag clearly in mind, we can plan the execution accordingly and use our resources as necessary - that's the commonsense aspect of it. ...It's not that we had money in our hands. Neither Mahi nor I had invested even one paisa of our own in the film! But, we are the producers and we hold the rights to our creation. ...It may be that our brains worked more effectively essentially because we didn't have money! (Laughs) The basic idea is more powerful than money! If I know clearly that I need one crore, I can then act on the idea and get that money somehow. That's the way we planned and executed. We believe that it's a misconception to think that one can make a movie only when one has money in hand. More important is having the idea which can generate the required money.
NaChaKi: ...And, you did prove that as a misconception now!
Saikiran Adivi: Yeah, right, but the whole team worked hard and we all really wanted a memorable success. It worked out well at the end, and the positive talk is really satisfying!
NaChaKi: I felt Vinayakudu could have fared better with more publicity. Are you planning better publicity for the sequel now?
Saikiran Adivi: Yeah, even I felt the same then. We are planning it better this time, I could say. We are not compromising on publicity and would go in an innovative way. With 1,50,000 CDs released into the market, we also hired a Volvo bus and went on a success tour for audio, which was never done earlier for a Telugu film, and we got a good response too for our all-Andhra Pradesh trip. Such a strategy worked for us, and we also came to know what kind of expectation the film had among the audiences. We are still thinking of better and effective ways of publicity even today. ...Publicity doesn't intended to force a new product with fake praises. Such a publicity only works for a few days and people would soon realize the better of it. Since we have the confidence in our project and because there's a positive talk already, there's a word of mouth publicity and we can improve it further with other ideas that we can work out.
