By Roy
After delivering hits like ‘Kinna Sohna’, ‘Kaliyon Ka Chaman’, ‘Tere Mast Mast Do Nain’, ‘Vaaste’, director Vinay Sapru from Radhika-Vinay duo of T-Series gets in a conversation with us where he shares about his latest release ‘Lut Gaye’ starring Emraan Hashmi.
From the time of its release, ‘Lut Gaye’ has been making loops on playlists. Talking about it he says, “It always brings me immense pleasure to work on great songs with T-Series and Bhushan Kumar. The way ‘Lut Gaye’ is winning hearts, we all are inspired and looking forward to delivering more such music.”
He then continues, “Since non-film songs are doing well, Bhushan Kumar suggested to do such a project with a movie star. I and Radhika had never worked on a non-film song with a film star earlier. So we decided to take up the project as an experiment.
When we heard the song and the true story of an undercover cop who later became an encounter specialist, we thought that Emraan Hashmi would be the fitting face for it. That’s how we all came on board.”
The duo has directed and produced songs of legendary singers like Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jagjit Singh etc. to the new-age sensations Dhvani Bhanushali, Neha Kakkar and many more. In fact, ‘Vaaste’ has become the only Hindi music video in India to have more than 1 billion views, in addition to being the most liked video in India, and in the top 10 most liked videos across the globe.
Vinay tells us about his journey, “Every individual has his calling. I feel for me and Radhika Ma’am, that was this. We had started our respective careers after the completion of film school. We wanted to do movies. At that time, music videos had a separate craze. The first one was Kinna Sona with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saab. However, there was a break in the midway and went for films. After a while, we picked up again with ‘Leja Re’, ‘Vaaste’, and now ‘Lut Gaye’. It seems like life has completed a circle.”
The pandemic never played a diversion for the duo; and similarly, Vinay promises more for 2021. However, working with artists of different generations over the period, Vinay puts his experience by saying, “The way artists immerse into their songs, lyrics, music all is very infectious. That’s all the same. The difference is older musicians used to work in the day and the newer lot work in the night. We both are set according to the older clock.
We are giving characters to Dhvani Bhanushali but we try to keep musicians, singers as themselves in the videos. This experiment we used to do with Asha Ji in the golden era. That is why it comes out so well. This carves the difference between actors and musicians beautifully.
Technology has changed. There used to be a time when there were huge mixing studios. Now everything is on a computer. Having said that, the singer, the passion, the drive between every successful singer is the main thing. The new-age singers and musicians like Arijit Singh, Neha Kakkar, Darshan Raval are as passionate as the legendary singers like Asha Bhosle Ji, Jagjit Singh Ji and many more.”
Having worked with celebrated composers, singers, and musicians, Vinay says that they have always their doors open for new brains with new ideas. He also opines that a music video should Ali narrate a story fulfilling the primary purpose of a song. “In our country, music is driven by the parallel line of audio-visual. A complementing visual experience is as important as a good song. Salman Khan has been our mentor, and when you work with a superstar like him, in your early days, that person tends to guide your thought process. He also liked our approach to storytelling and at the inception level, he was someone who inspired us.
For instance, Dhvani Bhanushali is one of the young and prettiest singers of the present time. So we visualised to do college romance sort of stories with her. However, on the other part, Emraan Hashmi is a very big star. And according to the storyline of ‘Lut Gaye’, we put it up in a 90’s theme, in a commercial portrayal fitting to Emraan’s aura.
No matter to which period you belong, consistency is the key in filmmaking. Even if I do a song with a veteran, a superstar, or with a newcomer, I put the equal amount of effort.”
The duo is up for a new venture which is a musical film with T-Series. “The musical film we are working on is the story of three people who hail from India but are settled abroad. It shows what happens next when they come on the terms of their lives.”
While concluding, he announces his next project, “My next project is soon going to be released in a few days. It stars Arjun Kapoor.”
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