Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Hitting the high notes

Bangalore-based Film Consepts are the brains behind the new Euphoria video, Bewafa. And there's more to come

LOCAL PRIDE The FCS team interacting with Euphoria

MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary of killing the radio star with video. We have stopped listening to songs. We watch them instead. Before you protest, here is a pop quiz. Did "Kaanta laga" have a 2-4 beat, an irregular fifth beat or did Shefali look hot? Gotcha!

Amidst all the cacophony and the ladies in little outfits mangling Panchamda's marvellous melodies is a music video that offers a sea of verdant green with musicians providing a soothing contrast in white. It is a video where the visuals walk hand-in-hand with the soaring music. The song is "Bewafa" from Euphoria's new album Mehfuz.

The music video is the labour of love of a 14-member city-based team, Film Consepts (FCS). "We are into events and have worked with Euphoria before," says Shreehari of FCS. "We had an idea to make a music video," says Dinesh Kumar also of FCS. It was around the time Mehfuz came out. "We approached Palash (Sen, the front man of the group) with the idea and he asked if we could make the video. That is how we got to shoot "Bewafa"," Shreehari informs. The script, storyline, production, and post-production everything was done in-house.

The twist in the tale at the end was helped in equal measure by the fact that "everyone in the group were good actors and we gave the script to the musicians only on the day of the shoot," says Dinesh. While the story is important, Dinesh insists that it "does not take away from the music". Shot over three days amidst the lush greenery of Coorg, Shreehari insists that the video "is clean. There are no half-clad women running about and there are not too many effects. The entire family can watch it. The video is cut to rhythm, but without eye-hurting editing and we shot on celluloid for quality."

Unlike music videos where only the lead vocalist is in focus, "Bewafa" gives equal screen time to all the band members. "Music videos are mainly shot in Mumbai and we took this on as a challenge," says Dinesh. Working as a team meant brainstorming into the night and struggling to come to an agreement. The video was storyboarded as it "helps plan, explain to the artiste and definitely does not curtail creativity," Shreehari says emphatically.

Next on the agenda is a Kannada film in January. "We are working on the script," says Dinesh. "It will be clean humorous film with Bollywood sensibilities. The finance is almost through." The pop music scene in Kannada is not really promoted so the team is not looking at pop videos in Kannada.

And how does Bangalore compare to Mumbai as far as technology goes? "It is as good, if not better. Bangalore just has not been exploited well," comes the reply from the duo.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail