Mumbai, Feb 12 (IANS) In time for Valentine's Day, Y-Films, the youth division of Yash Raj Films (YRF), Indias leading movie studio which has redefined romance and music in Bollywood over the years, is set to get digital users "high on love" with its new offering "Love Shots".
A collection of six short films with a twist, "Love Shots", a cumulative poster of which was released on Friday, is Y-Films' new offering to break clutter in a market full of web series.
"Everybody is doing web series... It's a good time to shift gears," Ashish Patil, Y-Films vice president, Brand Partnerships and Talent Management, told IANS.
After grabbing eyeballs with its own web series like "Man's World" and "Bang Baaja Baaraat", and launching India's first transgender band '6 pack', the platform will tell stories of love with interesting settings, unique slice-of-life characters and unconventional story arcs.
What's more? Six new-age music artistes have been roped in to create dedicated original soundtracks worked upon by Arjun Bhaskar Collective, Shaan & Superbia, Gaurav Dagaonkar, Subhi Khanna and Ankur Tewari for each story, which will be rolled out on a weekly basis starting March.
Add to that, actors of the likes of Farida Jalal, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Nimrat Kaur, Shweta Tripathi, Tillotama Shome, Saqib Saleem, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Rhea Chakraborty, Mohit Marwah, Saba Azad, Swanand Kirkire and more to give the stories a larger scale. In fact, Salim Merchant of music duo Salim-Suleiman is making his acting debut with "Love Shots".
"Scandal", "The Big Date", "Textbook", "Fired", "Koi Dekh Lega" and "The Road Trip" are the titles of the short films of five to 10 minutes duration, directed by Ankur Tewari and produced by Patil.
"We thought of changing the format. So, these are six short films, all about love. It's meant to be like a tequila, which leaves the audience high on love," Patil said, adding that while the announcement of the project comes perfectly timed ahead of Valentine's Day, anything on love and romance works all year round in India, "a country of mad romantics".
Besides, he said, the films are specifically unconventional -- in tune with YRF's longstanding approach of telling non-traditional love stories with movies like "Kabhi Kabhie", "Silsila", "Lamhe" and "Darr".
"Scandal", for example, Patil described, is about two senior citizens who stop by at a sunset point for evening 'chai', but they land in an awkward and embarassing situation. "The Big Date" is about two sisters -- one, a chirpy and bubbly girl getting ready for a date, and the other an autist, and their conversation about the former's excitement for the date.
It is such stories and more told with a cinematic vision and "young, cool and stylised" look that Patil feels will "up the game" as far as the digital platform is concerned in India.
"Internationally, short films have made it big, and there are dedicated film festivals for them. It's a shorter, interesting medium to show stories which may not necessarily have big start, middle and end moments, but you will know the characters well enough even in three minutes.
"Short films are a different medium with tremendous potential, and I hope people follow it."
