"TVF’s Gullak has broken the jinx of Seasons-2’s in Indian web Series"

Answers are given byShreyansh Pandey Head of TVF OriginalsVijay Koshy President amp Business HeadDeepak Mishra Director PanchayatPalash Vaswani Director Gullak2Rupal SQ 2020 was a unique year where every business was badly affected but TVF seems to have hit it out of the park with the backtoback success of Panchayat Interns amp now Gullak 2 How has Pandemic been for TVFVijay I think 2020 has been one of the toughest years for mankind in a long time and lockdowns amp market forces made it worse for individuals as well as companies It was no different for TVF but like they say that tough times bring the best in you if you are worthy Arunabh our Founder amp Chairman was determined to help us all sail through this without compromising on our spirit of telling great stories And thats exactly what we did We focussed on our core and removed distractions in our business strategy and the result is in front of us with Gullak Season2 breaking all records from reviews to viewershipQ Yes not just that but Gullak2 seems to have finally broken the jinx of Season2s in India and performed even better than Season1 Some of the biggest shows like Sacred Games amp Breathe saw their Sequels tank very badly What do you think is the reason behind it has changing strategy helpedShreyansh First of all as a lover amp maker of shows we are really happy to hear that Gullak2 has broken the jinx of Season2s in India and we only hope amp wish that we can have more and more shows with successful subsequent seasons While no one can predict the success of content I can share with you what we are trying to do not just with Gullak2 but for all our upcoming shows after changing our strategy is that get back to our foundation of storytelling We are creating shows with the same simplicity amp honesty with which TVF started and no matter what happens if one follows the principles of content creation at TVF we know that the result will be amazing no matter what Like in Gullak2 we had a completely new team of writers and directors but the beauty of stories only increased because we reinforced the processQ Palash While Directing Gullak2 which I presume happened right after lockdown what are the preparations you did and what challenges you facedPalash Shooting is anyway a very unpredictable process and if you throw a highly contagious pandemic in the mix then you have a recipe of surprises But as a director you live for the magic that one gets to create with so many variables After sitting home for 6 months in lockdown we all were raring to start work Shreyansh had been developing amp Durgesh was writing the show for few months but my actual work started the day we had an allteam narration with Arunabh where he suggested his last set of changes and left me with a set of very tough questions that I had to answer Some of them seemed quite unreal but he soon made us realize that shooting this show is nothing less than a battle With him as a producer you know that he is going to trust you blindly but also ask you blinder questions so that you are ready to face the worst on set This time even the script had few new nuances which personally excited me as a storyteller and Shreyansh was standing with me throughout to bring that to lifeShreyansh I think we all have to give the most credit to Palash for having pulled this off amidst such a tough time We had intermittent curfew still happening when we started the preproduction and had to cancel recce twice before we could go Palash worked out every detail of the schedule as we shot Gullak in live locations but we were also very clear that we are not going to compromise on anyones health The Actors showed immense support Vijay sir Mishraji and Arunji were available anytime we needed them and made sure that any problem was attended to immediatelyVijay I think we all have to thank our Studio Head Arun here for making all our shows happen TVF finished shooting for 12 shows in four months as soon as lockdown opened thanks to Arun amp his team at TVF production studioQ Deepak Panchayat has been winning viewers and awards since its release How was the show conceived and what makes TVF shows different from othersDeepak The idea of making a show on Indian villages is something that Arunabh shared with all of us sometime in 2016 where he wanted to make something like a new age Malgudi Days which is a tribute to Rural India He had visualised the story of a character from the village itself who goes to a city to study and has come back He trusted me and Chandan to work on it and later we changed the story where Abhishek has never been in a village which is what we see in the showI humbly think that many great stories are being told in the streaming world I love Scam1992 and would hope to make something like that in the future Yes TVF stories have an inherent style and sensibility but above all what makes our stories go an extra mile from others is the culture amp vision which Arunabh has stilled in our system He sees what others dontPalash I would like to add here that Mishraji is one of the most meticulous directors I have ever seen and the kind of details he has created in Panchayat will go down in the history of shows I have personally worked with him as an associate and its a delight to see his prepQ TVF has been a pioneer in online content in India with 1st Youtube creators and 1st Web Series but Now Streaming is mainstream so what is next at TVF and what stories can the viewers look forward toShreyansh OTT space has grown by leaps and bounds and it has only allowed creators like us to tell more stories We have been busy developing and shooting shows back to back and the game has just begun We are also very fortunate to have Vijay Sir back at TVF as President and business head who is already working on a very ambitious canvass He has only strengthened our existing partnership with Brands amp Platforms and we will hopefully tell more genres of stories across shortform and longform for a larger number of partners amp brands under his guidance Wersquove forayed into regionals with the remake of Indiarsquos first web show Permanent Roommates in Telugu as Commitmental and a brand new show in Marathi alongside developing more regional shows for various platformsVijay Shreyansh is very kind but like I said in the beginning that its going to be laser focus of TVF to partner with as many OTT platforms amp Brands as we can and continue doing what TVF has been doing for almost a decade now which is to tell great stories and empower talents in front amp behind the cameraI am in great company with Shreyansh heading our Originals and working with more writers on increasing the roaster of our shows while our team of writers amp directors are working on their next seasons and new projectsQ So guess we will get to see the 2nd season of Panchayat amp the 3rd Season of Gullak soonVijay Yes and also Kota Factory season2 Hostel Daze season2 and subsequent seasons of some of Indias most loved shows like Permanent Roommates Tripling Flames Yeh Meri Family are under development while 3 new genres with three big OTT platform will also be announced soon