Ekam showrunner Sandeep PS: Pitching show to OTTs taught me that they want content, but…

Ekam showrunner Sandeep PS feels that if OTTs had watched his show, perhaps they would have opened doors

Sandeep PS with Prakash Raj on the set of Ekam

In 2018-2019, when Sandeep PS, a cinematography graduate from the LV Prasad school of filmmaking, pitched the idea for a Malayalam web series to Netflix, there were two things he was told – make it in Hindi and find someone to be the showrunner because he had no experience on that scale. Of course, he did not want to do it in Hindi, so the show did not happen, but since then, it became Sandeep’s goal to figure out how to become a showrunner himself.

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Once the concept for Ekam, the Kannada web series that’s releasing on July 13, came about, Sandeep finally fulfilled that goal – he’d have the last word as far as creative calls go. In the two years that Sandeep’s been sitting on the finished product with no way to get it to audiences, he’s had multiple meetings with people from various OTT platforms.

OTT platforms have faith in us, not in the language

“One thing that’s happened through these meetings is that there is interest to onboard us to develop new series with them. It is clear now – ‘It sounds super interesting, but we can’t do Kannada, can you develop it in another language, because we believe in you’. It is an interesting conundrum to be in,” says Sandeep.

He adds, “I have good relationship with people at some of these OTT platforms, but unfortunately, they just haven’t entered the Kannada market. The managements were very clear that they can’t procure just the one piece of content from Kannada. I’m sure that if they’d watched it, there would have been a different outcome, but it never got to that stage.”

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Sandeep, however, empathises with the team that is in-charge of watching content. “There’s a team of, say, 3 people who have to watch all the content for the south India region. It’s a bit insane, for them to watch something that is never going to be a part of the mandate. One of the points that the managements of OTTs made is that even if they procure one title, they need to have enough to service the audience. If they take Ekam, then what’s next, because there is not much content that’s out there,” he says.

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Ekam, produced by Journeyman Productions and presented by Rakshit Shetty’s Paramvah Studios is releasing on July 13, through their own platform.

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