Young Guns - In conversation with Deep Singh Kakkad by ShortFilmWindow
May 28th, 2015
Young, quiet, soft-spoken Deep Singh Kakkad, impresses in the first meeting as a resolute young man. In India where there is no recognition for short form content, Deep Singh Kakkad in 2013 decided on using an existing pipeline to make short films popular. He worked towards theatrical release of 5 short films (3 of which he produced) together in a film called SHORTS.
He works with Sikhya and also runs the sister firm Golden Gaddi Productions that produces ad films for brands like Coca Cola and Saavn.
He was gracious enough to share his life's story with us. We are sure lots of young budding producers, who are trying to find audience for their work will benefit from his story.
Tell us more about yourself, where you come from and what you did before you landed in Mumbai?I was born and brought up in Mumbai, Kings circle. I studied commerce from Khalsa Collage and realized I'm more interested in films than accountancy and therefore went to Whistling Woods to study Producing. I dropped out post the first year after I gained sufficient theoretical knowledge and wanted to gain hands-on experience of working in production.
Tell us about your journey in hindi film industry. How did you get into film production?
My dad was an EP at a channel. He used to do Sikh religious shows on ETC and PTC Punjabi. I have always been inspired by his way of working. I was pretty clear that I wanted to do something in the similar space and more so in films and made up my mind to start that journey as soon as possible. As mentioned earlier, I went to Whistling Woods after my HSC to study their Producing Course to learn the insight of film making.
After the first year, I joined Producer Guneet Monga at her company Sikhya Entertainment and started assisting her and learned how a movie is made form start to end. Guneet was a wonderful mentor who encouraged and supported me to explore new possibilities. Besides that I also gained in-depth knowledge about International Film Festivals as well considering that she has built her network through that route.
We have now grown organically to working on shorts, feature films and commercials starting Golden Gaddi Films.
You pioneered release of short films in India in your maiden release SHORTS. Tell us about your experiences.
It started out with us producing Short Films as we routinely did but once we had a bank of short films I started curating them and shortlisted the 5 best Short films that possibly could be released as one feature film, SHORTS.
That experience taught me what all it takes to release a film in the theatres in ten cities in India. It was a holistic learning experience, as right from production to the tail end of marketing and distribution was something I was hands-on involved in, from the beginning, and a personally enriching experience as a stepping stone to being able to doing it again but in a better and more planned way.
If you had to redo and re-release short films, what would you do differently?
We would have taken more time to plan out the marketing of the film. Last year it was a mere 15 day marketing plan. Although we took the digital route in promoting and a TV show integration, we realized we could have done a more focused and concentrated marketing campaign around it, even though we had a very limited budget.
Today Social Media and Online marketing helps a lot in getting exposure for such kind of niche films and alternate content.
Shorts was done at a very small scale comparatively but next time we would do it with a more organised Production and P&A plan.
At such a young age, you have made good inroads in various aspects of film-making, what core skills do you think you have that benefited you. Any advice for future film makers?
Don't wait for the right time. The right time is when you feel confident and want to show to the world what you have got.
What according to you is future of independent cinema?
Independent Cinema has a great future. Even the big Corporate houses are open to back independent cinema like The Lunchbox, Filmistaan, Shahid, etc.
All they need is a film with a good story. Besides, these days theatrical exhibition is not the only source of revenue. Floodgates have opened with the advent and rise of DTH, Digital platforms and now even satellite with Mtv Indies have started picking up and backing films that are strong on content and belong to the independent genre.
This is only the beginning and we will see more and more people supporting short films and indie cinema, including colleagues from the mainstream as content is proving to be the king. The audience is slowly evolving and that definitely benefits the niche films.
What according to you are key changes in short film content and distribution and how do you see the future especially in India?
Short Films are a very interesting format of telling a story and it has not been explored much in India like it has been Internationally where there are dedicated festivals for screening and platforms for release. I won't say that similar community of supporters is not there in India but they are fragmented and we need to consolidate our efforts to bring mass awareness.
In 15-20 mins you get a impact of watching a complete story. If done well, this format would be of a great demand and would take a place in mainstream sector as well. Almost every internet user is active on YouTube and often times on social media we see that it is the short content that goes viral and every one of us might have shared such a video at some point so it's just about creating more and more content and giving it an adequate marketing and release support.
In the digital space, short form of content is already the future, it's only that the term "short films" need to be promoted by channelizing our collective effort.