Bollywood rises to the world wide web

Blogs, games and online premiers ? movie marketing is taking new routes to big bucks, writes Hiren Kotwani.

My producer has banned smoking on the sets, a joke taken so far that he has fined me 500 bucks for it and even gave me a receipt for it — reads a blog.

Another case of on-the-sets angst finding its way to the worldwide web? Not quite. That was just director Anurag Kashyap’s way of promoting his latest film No Smoking.

Vivah, the Rajashri film which released last week, was the first main-stream movie to premiere on the Internet.

Movie marketing is now exploring new frontiers — the Internet, cellphones and gaming. The Internet has emerged as the most important medium of film promotion with blogs fast replacing film websites as the preferred medium.

“Finally, shooting has begun,” Anurag writes in his online diary on www.passionforcinema.com, using a tool that was first exploited by Prakash Jha for Apaharan.

“It’s interesting to read feedback from readers about what they think and feel about the film because it also helps me see things from their perspective,” says Anurag.

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Cellphones are another lucrative area. Filmmakers are now trying to talk to the youth in the language they understand best. “A clear majority of the audience is in the 15 to 35 age group,” says Suleman Mobhani, director Indiafm.com, a division of Hungama.com, which recently enabled full song downloads in association with Hutch.

Gaming is another area filmmakers are turning their attention to. Already a popular concept in the West, a game based on the film hits the market a couple of weeks before the film’s release, fuelling the hype.

“The film has to lend itself to the game,” said Shah Rukh Khan when he launched a game based on Don recently. Developed by Hungama Mobile, and inspired by the film’s screenplay, the Don game can be played by two people in different parts of the globe.

“It’s a new concept that we’ve tried in keeping with today’s times. Hopefully in the coming years, we will have more such games,” feels Mobhani.

hiren.kotwani@hindustantimes.com