You can detach a little from a project as a showrunner: Vikramaditya Motwane
Chandigarh: Director Vikramaditya Motwane said the Indian streaming space must adopt the showrunner-director model where duties are divided between different professionals to ensure an efficient way of working.
Motwane most recently served as creator-showrunner and a co-director on the acclaimed Netflix series "Black Warrant", based on the 2019 non-fiction book of the same name by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury.
"The showrunner-director model is something we must adopt in the series format. It is much easier. It's an efficient way of working. We are not sort of stuck in saying that I am directing every single minute of this 51 days of shoot," the director said during a session at the second edition of the Cinevesture International Film Festival here on Saturday.
At the session titled 'Synergy of Success', Motwane said being a showrunner allows one to have a distance from the project.
"As a showrunner, you can detach a little bit, but it is important for me to make sure that my character arcs are being served the way they were set in the beginning," he added.
A showrunner is a person who oversees the writing and production of each episode of a series and has ultimate managerial and creative control over it. They may or may not be a director or co-director on the show.
Previously, Motwane served as showrunner on the two seasons of "Sacred Games", another ‘Netflix’ series, of which he directed the first season with Anurag Kashyap. Season two was directed by Kashyap and Neeraj Ghaywan.
Motwane said the showrunner-director model works around the world and has been effective with stories that span multiple seasons.
"We tried it in 'Black Warrant', we attempted to do it a little bit in 'Sacred Games', like what if we got four directors but we realised that it's a scheduling nightmare. Just trying to figure out how we go with multiple directors from world A to world B and then decide that, 'Okay, let me just direct one half of the show, Anurag directs one half of the show, we put it together'. But that ('Sacred Games') was like almost doing two independent feature films. There was a model in 'Black Warrant' because we were mostly shooting on two sets," he added.
"Black Warrant" producer Sameer Nair of ‘Applause Entertainment’, who was also part of the panel, said the Americans have been following the showrunner-director model for a long time.
"Americans have perfected that and everyone works very hard, all the prep, everything is done. They shoot one episode a week with a different director. 'Friends' was done like that, so if you see the credits there's always the different director and the same showrunner. That's why a showrunner becomes such an important person. I think people get misled with what these terms are and what are these people supposed to do," Nair said.
Actors Zahan Kapoor and Rahul Bhat, who played Tihar Jail jailer Sunil Gupta and Tihar Jail DSP Rajesh Tomar in "Black Warrant", also attended the event.
Bhat, who has received praise for playing Tomar, a senior police official who sternly handholds the rookie jailer Sunil Gupta in the series, said he often lends his life's experiences to the characters he plays on screen.
"With Tomar, I felt that when you are talking about soul, I got that on day one. I am an actor. I only perform for my directors. I don't care about how audiences are going to react, whether I am good or bad. I try to understand the essence that he wants me to portray. I look into my director's eyes and I know whether I am doing good or bad," he added.
Zahan said it was "strange" that his two screen credits - his debut film "Faraaz" by Hansal Mehta and "Black Warrant" - are based on true stories.
"It's not that I went out and said, 'I am going to champion true stories or I will do such cinema'. It was not at all like that. It just happened to be that way and so that is coincidental."
The actor said he immediately agreed to audition for "Black Warrant" when he found out that Motwane was attached to the series.
"You know you want to associate with makers that are dedicated to telling stories. I was always a little bit apprehensive of trying to manipulate or manufacture some kind of image or impression in front of the audience which I always found to be slightly dishonest."
