The Story So Far…
I am from Lucknow and films have always been in my blood. But I began my career in television and then graduated to films, where I started editing trailers. I landed my first project when Anubhav Sinha got in touch with me for his film Dus, which featured Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan and Sunil Shetty in the lead. A few guys and I did the entire campaign for the film and it was well appreciated.
I have known Anubhav since my television days as he used to direct music videos, and we began to work together after Dus. After that film, I made the trailer for Dibakar Banerjee’s Khosla Ka Ghosla and later Farhan Akhtar’s Don. The trailer of Don met with a tremendous response and that really changed things for us. It turned heads and we finally felt we had ‘arrived’.
On Bullett Raja Trailer
Saif Ali Khan has been a really big part of my journey in films. We met during Love Aaj Kal, which was Dinesh Vijan and Saif’s first home production. He asked me to watch the film and cut its trailer. I did and our team gelled so well that thereafter we made all the trailers for Saif’s Illuminati Films including Go Goa Gone, Agent Vinod, Cocktail and now Bullett Raja.
Besides blood, sweat and hard work, a lot of creativity went into the making of the trailer of Bullett Raja. It was a potent combination of a director like Tigmanshu Dhulia coming together with an actor like Saif Ali Khan. Both their sensibilities are so different that we had to highlight that union from the word go. The makers had given us a free hand, and whether it was Rahul Mitra, Tigmanshu or Nitin (Tej Ahuja), no one reigned us in.
Saif will be playing the title role of Bullett Raja, so we had to highlight his best lines and scenes without giving away too much. Tigmanshu recently told us that Saif plays a trigger-happy guy in the film, which is co-incidentally also the name of our company. So I guess it was a union made in heaven!
The Response
The response to the trailer has been fabulous. After having worked in the industry for so long, we know how the film trade functions. The first trailer can make or mar the prospects of a film at the box office. If the trailer is good, we start getting calls from distributors who say the film looks superb. And you know you have made a bad trailer when you don’t get calls from the trade. After Bullett Raja’s trailer launch, my phone hasn’t stopped buzzing. So that’s a really positive sign.
What Next?
I have about 15 to 20 films lined up after Bullett Raja, including R…Rajkumar, Highway, It’s Entertainment and Happy Ending.