Hindi
Film industry needs to look beyond box office
MUMBAI: Tapping revenues beyond the box office is a challenge that the Indian film industry has to wake up to. This is particularly important when film production and marketing costs are going up. Kick-starting the session on “Rethinking Fim Marketing and Distribution: Beyond Box Office” at Ficci-Frames here today, Moser Baer entertainment business CEO Harish Dayani said that only two per cent of India‘s population go to the cinema theatres to watch a film. Even as this percentage is declining, the game is to tap the remaining 98 per cent. |
The need of the hour is to deliver the product to the consumers at their convenience without leaving any room for piracy which takes away a major chunk of the box office revenues. Speaking on the scope that online distribution of films throws up, Rajshri Productions director Rajjat A Barjatya said: “We released the film Vivah simultaneously in 200 screens in India and 100 screens overseas as well as online. We got a whooping 6500 downloads worldwide. Online contributed to 50 per cent of our total revenues. The entire model turned out very well and that shows the future of online distribution.” Box office collections, however, stay as the major revenue earner for films. “Film is a brand which needs to be established well. This happens only at the box office and then the brand is ready to be exploited on other platforms. No one would buy an unknown brand,” said Sony Pictures India CEO Uday Singh. The Sony distribution company recently diversified into film production and released Saawariya which fared average at the box office. |
Indian filmmakers have started exploiting various revenue streams including merchandising. Mates CEO Darshana Bhalla cited the example of blockbuster film Om Shanti Om which earned 63 per cent through box office collections, but also raked in revenues from merchandising. OSO tied up with retail chain Shoppers Stop and organized fashion shows to promote the film. Home video accounted for 15 per cent of the film‘s gross earnings. |
Speaking at the session, Reliance Entertainment chief marketing officer Saurabh Varma said: “One will mainly see film merchandising on stationary, apparels and special items created around the subject of the movie.” |
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
