Business of films workshop by Junglee Pictures at BU

By Aakriti Ghai
A two-day workshop on ‘decoding business of films’ and ‘film marketing’ was conducted on 12 April 2023 -13 April 2023, for the Times School of Media students at Bennett University. The workshop was conducted by Junglee Pictures as a part of the Business of Films course's curriculum.

The workshop was held in a hybrid mode where the students collectively interacted with the guests. The listeners in attendance got a chance to learn and gain insights about the business of the Indian film industry. The session on day-1, started with shocking facts about the profits made by the film making studios and actors starring in the much-loved films. Further, the interaction took the students in-depth into unknown facts about how films earn.

Continuing this through day- 2, the session helped students understand the consumer market trends. “It is important to make movies relatable to society and to the consumers and following the trends, for decades films have shown the culture, following the emotional connect and reflecting the society,” Mamta Kamtikar, vice-president and head revenue and commercials, Junglee Picture limited, said.

In the post-pandemic times, the kind of films which were attracting audiences during pre-pandemic era are not being consumed anymore. With this an understanding about the consumer behaviour was also touched upon. Clearing up the doubts on the traditional ways of viewing the wide range of films, Kamtikar said, “ Even after all the OTT platforms, theatres still remain the base for the business. Even after a lot of content or the cost of visiting the cinema halls increasing, the consumers or the makers still go back to theatres. Looking at the number of screens in India and population there is huge scope.”

The film marketing section of the workshop touched upon the goals of marketing, the importance of communication and the choice of mix- media. “Students here are very well- versed with the data, and are very inquisitive about creative marketing strategies,” Bhawna Jeswani, head of marketing, said.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the session, it was really helpful and interactive. Personally, I wasn't aware about how films can be marketed in such creative ways and being interested in marketing opened up more doors of interest,” Aditi Agarwal, BAJMC, second year student said.
(The writer is a Semester IV student of BA (Journalism and Mass Communication) programme.)