‘STICKING TO OUR VISION IS PAYING OFF’
Says Raj Nidimoru, of the writer-producer-director duo Raj and Krishna DK. They talk about their association and why they “focus on standing out and not just making money”
After completing 10 years in the business, the writer-producer-director duo, Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK are glad to have stepped into the digital platform. The duo enjoy working on never-done-before
concepts and love adding quirk to each project, including Shor in the City (SITC; 2011), the quirky Go Goa Gone (2013) and their recent hit Stree (2018). Excerpts.
What kind of reactions have you got for the web series The Family Man (TFM)?
Raj:
It has been overwhelming and amazing to see what a web show can do. Some people dissuaded us saying we are filmmakers but I am glad we took the plunge. There were so many layers from satire, friendship, terror plot, current affairs, family life, which is what we were excited about. Given that season one was so successful, there is a lot of expectation and excitement about the next season.
DK: Making a web show is a humongous task but it also allows us to explore a subject more deeply than what you can in a film.
What were your expectations while working on the show? DK:
For us, coming from the feature film background, we didn’t know what to expect. There are no box office figures, so we only got a sense of what people thought once we got the reviews and reactions on social media. And what’s lovely about web series is that every week we have new audiences watching it. The life cycle lasts longer.
How do you look back at your decade-long association? Raj:
We were two friends trying to make a film, not knowing how to make . We taught ourselves everything from writing, producing and directing. We wanted to make movies that are unique and not run-of-the-mill. We didn’t focus on making money but standing apart. We didn’t want to get into the ‘business of films’ but focus on creation. It took four years for our first film to be made. It has been a long journey since then. Today, I feel we are in a happy space and making what we want to, be it Stree or TFM. Few years ago, we got clarity that we should stick to what we believe in and that is paying off now.
DK: Our initial films like SITC got good reviews but didn’t work at the box office. But after SITC came Go Goa Gone and people wondered, ‘who are these whacky guys?’ The last couple of years have been good in terms of the work that we have done. Also turning producers has enabled us to put out a lot more stories and have control over our own creations.