Hyderabad
November 11, 2008

About me
I have always been a back bench student since my school days. I never tried to get ranks even when i was in my college. I always had to put greatest efforts to acquire 35%. I was a bit inferior as all of my cousins were top rankers. I always wanted to prove everyone in my family that i am the most successful person than anyone in my family. These intentions made me choose a path which i can deal with and a career in which i can be successful.

Both my dad Mr. Adivi kanakaraju, and my mom adivi subba ratnam are good writers. They wrote couple of novels. I think i have their influence on me, and that influence helped me to turn as a story teller. I would thank my dad who encouraged me when i told him that i was interested in film making. He was never against my interests; perhaps he funded me when i came to Hyderabad in search of my career. My mother is no more now but she always wished me to be on the top and those blessings are still working for me.

My passion for films
Passion for cinema brought me all the way from Kakinada to Hyderabad in 1999. When i was in college I was a great fan of Ram gopal varma and always wanted to work with him. I attempted many un successful attempts to meet him. I was very particular and choosey with the director i wanted to work with. One day an interview in DC of Sekhar kammula grabbed my attention. I felt he could be the right person to work with to acquire appropriate knowledge about film making. i met him and told him that i want to work as an asst dir to him. He replied “ no...we shall work together”. This response made me wait 4 years for Anand to start.

Experience working with sekhar kammula
Working with sekhar kammula was a wonderful experience. Proud to be part of both Anand and Happy days. I have learnt many things that a normal asst director will never be able to learn working with any body in the film industry. I was into direction department and production too. Not only me we all {the direction team} were involved in direction, production, publicity, as well as releasing the film also and organising functions. All these experiences made me capable of dealing with many things which a normal asst director cannot do.

I think i learnt many sensitive techniques of subject making while interacting and speaking to Sekhar kammula even before Anand was started. The period before Anand after Doller dreams favoured me in a way as Sekhar was not very busy. I used to meet him every week end to share my thoughts with him. I believe these interactions with Sekhar educated me a lot more than working with him on the sets. yes working on sets helped me in a decent way but speaking with sekhar educated me more, when compared to me being on sets.

My strengths
I always believed in one thing that common sense is the text book to learn anything in the universe, so using common sense i started making documentaries even before i worked for Anand.

Learnt conviction, hard work & honesty. 6 yrs as an asst director gave me strength to tell stories the way i would love to. making like anand most people told me why an unconventional story ,why not a love story or a family drama . I believed any story told with a passion and honesty will be successful (creatively).

I am thankful to my friend Abhjeet agarwal who called me up one day { this happened even before anand was started} and told me a title “a big fat love story”, he doesn’t have a subject for the title. The same night i started thinking of the big fat love story, and then i started visualising a fat guy walking along with a hot babe on the road. It grabbed my attention. I felt this can be the selling point. This thought inspired me to write vinayakaudu script.

I was fed up with stupid comedy in telugu films being played upon fat people. I wanted to present the subject in a funny manner but in a healthy comic way. I fixed up my mind to make it a romantic comedy and focused to present it in commercial cross over format, to target my set of audience. I believe that dialogues are my strength, and i fixed up my mind to shape it up in verbal communicative method.

I started writing versions and landed up with this version. This is almost 9th version of my script. I would like to mention 3 names Abhjeet agarwal, anil gudooru, and ramana salwa who supported me in making out the script. It took almost 5 months to finalise the script, in spite of working on the script for a long time.

Initially i thought of making it an emotional death sentimental drama but i changed my mind when i saw kal ho na hoo. I felt that i almost followed the same pattern. Then i changed it to a simple emotional drama in a comic way. I was confident that this thought process will surely work. I did research work how people in todays generation speak and how they behave. This research helped in making out the characters and their behaviours.

I still remember the day when i told sekhar kammula about the big fat love story line while we both were travelling in his car, at the time of happy days. Sekhar was not confident about the subject and later i gave him the bound script after few months. i was very curious for his response. Suddenly after 3 days i got a call from him saying “ this film will definetly grabb the attention of the public and will surely do well at the box office”. I felt very happy and confident listening to sekhar’s words.

I should mention my producer Mr. Premkumar for sure who was very much impressed with the story when i narrated him at his office even before happy days. It took almost one and half years for him to start the project due to his personal reasons. As i told u i was very particular with whom i am working with, i wanted an investor who has the guts and passion to make good films. I feel premkumar is a very ethical person, i stick to my words. We had many fights at the time of production but still i feel i got the right producer.

Once we started the pre production, i thought of making the project big. Sekhar kammula created a platform for small films to have tie ups with corporate where both the corporate and films can be mutually benefited. I followed his foot steps and got corporate tie ups.

My media partners

• Reliance communications {who are putting hoarding all over ap}
• Tv9 {doing television publicity}
• Big 92.7 fm {radio partner}
• Idlebrain.com {web partner}
• Hometown {provided us furniture for the shoot}
• VLCC {make over of the cast}
• Kodak {special deal for the purchase of the negative}

Here i would like to thank all the media {print media, electronic media, and web sites,} who have been supporting me since a long time.

While making the script i took many precautions to avoid sekhar’s influence on me to have an individual identity as a film maker, but i feel i failed to avoid having his influence upon me. I take it as a privilege of having influence of a standard film maker like sekhar kammula.

It took almost 54 working days with lot of gaps in between to complete the shoot now i feel very relaxed when everybody who watched vinayakaudu feel that its a very neat film.

Sekhar kammula commented vinayakaudu as a good film. Mr.Dilraju commented vinayakaudu as a cute film. Now i am curiously waiting for the audience response.

- Sai Kiran Adivi
[email protected]

Vinayakudu links:
• USA schedules
• Prem Patra interview
• Krishnudu interview
• Wallpapers
• Press meet
• Music launch
• Logo launch
• Photo gallery
• Trailers
• Video songs