Chandigarh, March 23: Director Vikramaditya Motwane says the Indian streaming space must adopt the showrunner-director model where duties are divided between different professionals to ensure an efficient way of working.
Motwane most recently served as creator-showrunner and a co-director on the acclaimed Netflix series “Black Warrant”, based on the 2019 non-fiction book of the same name by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury.
“The showrunner-director model is something we must adopt in the series (format). It is much easier… It’s an efficient moment of being able to work…
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“We are not sort of stuck in saying that I am directing every single minute of this 51 days of shoot,” the director said during a session at the second edition of the Cinevesture International Film Festival here on Saturday.
At the session titled ‘Synergy of Success’, Motwane said being a showrunner allows one to have a distance from the project.
“As a showrunner, you can detach a little bit but the importance for me is to make sure that my character arcs are being served the way they were set in the beginning,” he added.
A showrunner is a person who oversees the writing and production of each episode of a series and has ultimate managerial and creative control over it. They may or may not be a director or co-director on the show.
Previously, Motwane served as showrunner on the two seasons of “Sacred Games”, another Netflix series, of which he directed the first season with Anurag Kashyap. Season two was directed by Kashyap and Neeraj Ghaywan.
Motwane said the showrunner-director model works around the world and has been effective with stories that span multiple seasons.
“We tried it at ‘Black Warrant’, we attempted to do it a little bit in ‘Sacred Games’, like what if we got four directors realising that it’s a scheduling nightmare. Just trying to figure out how we go with multiple directors from world A to world B and then we decide that, ‘Okay, let me just direct one half of the show, Anurag directs one half of the show, we put it together’.
“But that (‘Sacred Games’) was like almost doing two independent feature films. There was a model in ‘Black Warrant’ because we were mostly shooting in two sets…” he added.
“Black Warrant” producer Sameer Nair of Applause Entertainment, who was also part of the panel, said the Americans have been following the showrunner-director model for a long time.
“Americans have perfected that and everyone works very hard, all the prep, everything is done… They shoot one episode a week with a different director.
“‘Friends’ was done like that so if you see the credits there’s always the different director and the same showrunner. That’s why a showrunner becomes such an important person. I think people get misled with what these terms are and what are these people supposed to do…” Nair said.
Actors Zahan Kapoor and Rahul Bhat, who played Tihar Jail jailer Sunil Gupta and Tihar Jail DSP Rajesh Tomar in “Black Warrant”, also attended the event. (PTI)
