Chitchat with Viswanatha Raju Penmatcha - Telugu cinema music producer

Chitchat with Viswanatha Raju Penmatcha
(executive producer of Love, Lies & Seeta )

26 May, 2011

Tell our audience about your feature film Love, Lies & Seeta?
Love, Lies & Seeta is the story of three guys that fall in love with the same girl, Seeta. Shot with a New York backdrop, this film was shot on revolutionary Red camera in 28 days in 50+ locations in New York and New Jersey. It is releasing on May 18th across multiple cities in India through Cinemax, and on the same day in US through Reliance Big Cinemas.

What is your role in making this film?
I am Executive Producer for this film, and original founder of the corporation that started this film project.

Tell us about your background. How did you get into making movies?
It is a long story. I graduated as a Chemical Engineer from Andhra University (India) in 1991 as a University ranker. Prior to that, I was a state ranker in Matriculation and college top ranker in Intermediate. My strong academic background gave me full scholarship at five US universities. I graduated from Stanford University at age twenty six with a PhD in Petroleum Engineering (my thesis was in computer simulations of oil reservoirs). I met President Clinton and Hillary on Stanford Campus as Chelsea Clinton was also studying at Stanford during that time. Afterwards, I worked in the software industry for a few years before I got bored of coding, and decided to become a movie director. I drove 1000 miles from Alabama to New York with my wife and a two year old son, and a loaded trailer behind our car.

In New York, I started working as a production assistant on NYU student films on weekends as I had a fulltime at Goldman Sachs. I later quit Goldman and founded a software company (SmartWorks), joined Wharton Business School for an executive MBA, while seriously pursuing my film interests on the side. I also worked as a Grip, actor and writer on several short films. Slowly I started writing and directing my own short films. I wrote, directed, and produced two short films, Mohan and Maya, and Occasional Smoker, before venturing into making my first feature film – Love, Lies & Seeta.

You said you initially worked as a production assistant. How did you get into that job?
After reaching New York in 2003, I posted my interest in Craigslist and someone called me to work as a production assistant for a NYU film. New York University Tisch School of the Arts is ranked #1 in US for film making. Production assistant job is tough as it involves hauling actors around, securing the premises, etc. I almost gave up at that point as I wasn’t learning anything creative.

My first break came when I spoke with someone online (Karthik, who later became a good friend) that encouraged me to get into New York Film Academy, from where I learned film direction.

How does it feel to get into creative art when you are trained as an engineer?
Writing stories and using the creative side of my brain showed me a new thrill. Until then I didn’t know this excitement that was stored for me in another part of my brain. While driving to New York was easy, working as a filmmaker wasn’t. Engaging the creative minds required me to continuously toss around ideas in my head. While it helps looking at other people’s works, the most satisfying part is the spin that one would give to his/her storyline which can only come from that person’s head.

There were times when I was driving on New Jersey turnpike and was thinking of my story line for hours. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone as that can be dangerous, although I must admit that freeways, and backyards and excellent places for one’s mind to go creative.

How did Love, Lies & Seeta project start?
An actor from my first short film (Mohan & Maya) introduced me to Chandra Pemmaraju who proposed to me in May 2009 the idea of making a full length feature film with a small budget. I immediately formed a corporation to produce this film and we two started meeting with potential investors. At that point there were only two of us working on this project. I took Chandra to an uncle of mine in New Jersey that produced a feature film the previous year, from whom we learned the importance of well known cast and the difficulty of finding distributors to an independent film. Other close friends and supporters joined thereafter making it a successful and three-year long team effort.

Any interesting moments in the making of Love, Lies & Seeta?
Thinking smartly is critical not only in engineering and business but also in creative fields. When we needed kids to act in our film, I contacted all Indian dance studios in New Jersey and offered to all of them a chance to act in our film. That started a ripple effect where in kids, their parents, parent’s friends, their friend’s friends, etc started showing up at our auditioning events. Some of them offered their houses for shooting; some others became investors, which gave us lots of free publicity.

Do you have any favorite directors?
Ram Gopal Varma has always been my favorite director. His movies Siva and Satya are, to me, timeless classics.

In your opinion, where do you think entertainment industry is going?
With the advent of internet ready TVs, youtube channels, and broadband based entertainment starting to enter people’s homes and phones, a large shift is taking place to entertainment’s delivery platform. For example, my classmate at Wharton and close friend, Pete Borum, started a business called Hangar Underground in New York which teaches people how to develop their own TV channels on youtube. I think, all of this will create larger demand very soon for entertainers, as delivery mechanisms are becoming cheaper and ubiquitous.

Any suggestions to film director wannabes?
Yes, just do it!

Will Love, Lies & Seeta do well at theaters?
I personally feel that Love, Lies & Seeta will do very well at theaters. In general, that is a hard question to answer. It is hard for a movie maker to predict his project’s success.

However, Professor Eliashberg at Wharton business school has developed some models wherein he claims they can predict box office success of a film by analyzing various components of a film such as scene lengths, amount of a dialogue in a scene, and various such factors. I know that Hollywood consults with him. Maybe Tollywood and Bollywood can also start looking at such models to secure an extra hedge to their high budget projects.

Any other comments?
I would like to thank my good friend and writer/director of Love, Lies & Seeta, Chandra Pemmaraju, for creating such a beautiful product. I also want to thank the lead actor in this movie and Miss India USA, a good friend, Melanie Kannokada, executive producers Gary Panchal and Chaitanya Chitta, and my close friends that invested/helped in making this film Venu Mudunuri, Sanni Kalidindi, Vasu Kosuri, Srini Penmetcha, and Hari Kunnaparaju. My wife, two sons, parents, sister, cousins, and my entire family were my backbone all throughout this project.

How can you be reached?
I can be reached at [email protected] - Website of Love, Lies & Seeta: http://www.llsmovie.com