Noble Babu Thomas: We want to extend Made in Heaven’s story for a feature film with Vineeth

When Noble Babu Thomas says that he has always wanted to be part of a good film, you are inclined to believe him. He started out as the producer of Nivin Pauly’s Jacobinte Swargarajyam, acted and co-scripted Helen and has now ventured into direction with his latest YouTube music video Kanmani Kanmani from the album Made in Heaven.

The song, composed by Shaan Rahman and rendered by Benny Dayal, has refreshing visuals and revolves around a girl (Ansha Mohan) bringing home her boyfriend (Noble) to meet her parents (Asha Madhathil and Satheesh).

On what prompted him to do a music video, Noble tells OTTplay, “For the past year, there was no work happening due to the lockdowns. When everything gets stuck, I get restless. Theatres are all shut and if we planned a movie, it has to be done on a bigger scale. That’s when I thought we could do something at least for YouTube and that led to the idea of a music album. Even then, I didn’t want it to be a typical album. So, I prepared a storyline and approached Shaan; he said we can do a single and that’s how Kanmani Kanmani happened.”

Initially, Noble says that he had discussed the idea with Helen filmmaker Mathukutty Xavier, who won the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut film this year. “I had been telling Mathukutty that we should do something and after a lot of thought, I got a one-liner and told him about it. I broke down each scene to him. After listening, he said, ‘Because you have explained it in detail and have clarity, it would be better if you did it’,” explains Noble, on how he ended up directing it.

But was it easy to direct and act at the same time? “Not really, because I can’t judge what’s happening when I am in front of the screen. (Helen co-scriptwriter) Alfred Kurian Joseph and Mathukutty helped me direct those portions,” he says.

While the boyfriend wins over the parents in the music video, it ends with him having to impress her elder brother. Noble reveals that the team is now planning to make a feature film based on Made in Heaven. “We want to tell the story from the brother’s entry onwards and scripting for that has begun. Vineeth Sreenivasan is obviously playing the brother,” he says. “We were also planning to shoot his portions but due to a lot of restrictions in Chennai, where COVID-19 cases had peaked at that time, we couldn’t film those.” Ask him if that was also the reason why Vineeth was not roped in to render the track and he says, “The plan from the initial stage itself was to opt for another singer.”

Just like Vineeth, Noble too has donned multiple hats during his journey in films. “Honestly, I only wanted to be part of a good film. Eventually, I did want to get into acting because it was always there in my mind and that’s why I kept doing different things. That’s also how I became a producer for Jacobinte Swargarajyam. In the process, I was also learning about filmmaking. A massive number of people watch and judge a film in a single day. So, I was fascinated by how a thought gets developed into this full-length feature film,” says Noble, who played the character of Anna Ben’s boyfriend in Helen.

Talking about his upcoming project, Noble says, “Alfred will be directing our next script. The works for that are progressing and we are waiting for the lockdown to be over to start the shoot.”