Anchoring :
On work being unstructured…
I wouldn't call it unstructured. It is giving an opportunity to every one to learn everything. Rather than saying he is capable of doing only that or this. They are given an opportunity to experiment in any field that they want. As your environment changes, your level of exposure changes, every human being tends to change. Tomorrow some one might feel that they are not cut out for a particular work. I would never tell my secretary, do only your job. For instance, I have asked her to watch one movie and find out if there are any flaws. So now for the first time, she is looking at a movie from a technical point of view. I just told her the basic, if there is a scratch or a jump just note down the count. All this while she would have watched a film with an eye on the story, but now she is just beginning to learn something else. If tomorrow she feels she likes editing, I would say 'yes'. So that opportunity is given. Also it reduces the ego level of people. We are prepared to do any work. Even today if the office is dirty, I wouldn't hesitate to clean it. That gives people who are working in that cadre a fear that I am ready to do anything. They would better do their job properly, otherwise I am there to do it.
I wouldn't call it unstructured. It is giving an opportunity to every one to learn everything. Rather than saying he is capable of doing only that or this. They are given an opportunity to experiment in any field that they want. As your environment changes, your level of exposure changes, every human being tends to change. Tomorrow some one might feel that they are not cut out for a particular work. I would never tell my secretary, do only your job. For instance, I have asked her to watch one movie and find out if there are any flaws. So now for the first time, she is looking at a movie from a technical point of view. I just told her the basic, if there is a scratch or a jump just note down the count. All this while she would have watched a film with an eye on the story, but now she is just beginning to learn something else. If tomorrow she feels she likes editing, I would say 'yes'. So that opportunity is given. Also it reduces the ego level of people. We are prepared to do any work. Even today if the office is dirty, I wouldn't hesitate to clean it. That gives people who are working in that cadre a fear that I am ready to do anything. They would better do their job properly, otherwise I am there to do it.
On women technicians :
Right now quite a few women are there, though the ratio is not very good. May be it is 20:1 or 30:1, but it used to be 100:0 previously. Technical training gives women a lot of confidence. I have seen the difference between women who are doing admin work and women working in the technical front, even within my own office. It gives them some pride.
On production houses from Mumbai :
Frankly speaking the quality has come down. I do not watch too many serials, but whatever I watch I feel its being done like, 'its enough if I get a few thousand rupees in profit, let me finish this episode', attitude will be there. Tamil productions are better, not all of them, but the major production houses are doing well. In Mumbai, there is not much professionalism, because they stopped dubbing totally. Its all original audio, technically it's bad. Probably because there is too much competition, there are too many channels now for them and too many programmes competing with each other. There are a few good production houses there, but earlier on all of them used to be good. Even here a lot of people think, there is no need to have any experience or expertise for this business. But there are some very good production houses in Chennai.
On television serials and films :
I want to do more successful projects. We are a little upset that we did not do well in films, though we are successful in serials. None of the four films we made have done well. The only thing we can be proud of is the fact that they were all standard productions. There was nothing vulgar or cheap or just to go with the trend kind of thing about them. We have got a very clean image for all the films that we made. Though they were entertaining, there could be some flaw somewhere. When it comes to making a film, we do not have much control. The producer does not have much of a say in it. It involves a lot of money at one time. When it comes to shooting a serial, I can just play it back here and if there are any corrections, I can just re-shoot it. The difference is a few thousands, but still we can correct it before it goes on air. But when it comes to films, once it is released I cannot get the viewers reaction and correct it, string it again and make it a success. But that is not the case in a television. We keep our ears open for comments. We welcome criticism. We see if there are some genuine comments, we would never ignore it, just because it's from a person whom we do not know. We make sure that atleast after that many episodes we incorporate the corrections, without people even noticing it. We have even won awards for some of the serials. Our 'Ethanai Manithargal' has won awards, but behind the scenes we know how many corrections we have made. We do not allow even small mistakes, no serial can be perfect, but we atleast attempt to make that possible. In a film it becomes impossible. We do not go to the shooting spot, sitting here we cannot control it. Once it is shot and edited, its lot and lot of money. For a serial, even if I re-shoot a days work, it will probably cost me Rs 25,000 or Rs 30,000. But when it comes to films, calling back the actor or actress will cost us in lakhs, which we cannot afford. So we want to do something which we can control.
