Acting is one of the world's toughest jobs, says TVF's founder Arunabh Kumar

In an e-mail interview to Hindustan Times, Arunabh Kumar speaks about the new web- series, TVF’s new website and his journey as an actor.

After the huge success of their first web-series Permanent Roommates, The Viral Fever is back with a new drama- Pitchers.

-Arunabh-Kumar-the-Founder-and-CEO-of-The-Viral-Fever-in-a-still-from-Pitchers

The show is a take on India’s frenzied start-up scene where the principal characters are played by Abhay Mahajan, Naveen Kasturia, Jitendra Kumar and TVF’s founder and CEO Arunabh Kumar.

In the first episode, the characters are shown at their mundane 9-5 jobs. The character Naveen Bansal, disappointed in his company for not letting him lead a project in Brazil, meets his senior from college who inspires him to begin his own start-up. Naveen decides to quit his job and tries to convince his friends to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. The show perfectly captures the milieu and the dilemma of four individuals who are scared at the prospect of leaving a well-paying job, but are still willing to take the risk.

The idea for Pitchers first came to Kumar in mid-2012, while brainstorming with his team about what kind of long-form content they could create. Having visited Bangalore twice in previous years, he’d observe twenty-somethings sitting at pubs and bars in the afternoon and discussing business ideas over multiple pitchers of beer, the concept of making a web-series that took an irreverent look at the world of would-be entrepreneurs intrigued him.

All episodes of Pitchers will be available on TVF’s new website TVFPlay.com. Those who want to watch it on YouTube will have to wait a little longer though.

The Viral Fever has been around since 2010 and is one of the largest online content creators in India. With over one million subscribers, TVF has shown that there is a huge audience for web-based content.

Their first web-series Permanent Roommates got over 7.5 million views and the first episode of Pitchers already has over 324k views.

In an e-mail interview to Hindustan Times, Arunabh Kumar speaks about the new web- series, TVF’s new website and his journey as an actor.

Pitchers is TVF's second web-series after Permanent Roommates? What was the idea behind starting it?

I would see people’s start-up dreams soar when they would start drinking their first mug of beer and die by the time the last pitcher was finished. There is so much drama in the whole process. I mean, even the prospect of quitting a day job that pays you Rs 1-2 lakh a month to go out on your own… there are so many emotions that one goes through.

What are the total number of episodes and seasons? Will the episodes be aired fortnightly?

The first season has 5 episodes. We don't know how many seasons exactly but there will be more than just one for sure.

Though we have rarely seen you in other TVF videos, you are one of the principal characters in this series. Describe your journey from behind the camera to in front of it.

Haha..I think they could not find another balding and aged actor to play the role and that’s why I was selected. It’s a character that is very strong and some fans have compared it to Ari Gold of Entourage. But personally, I would call it a Dabang in a corporate office/start up. It’s rare that we see or deal with characters who are real and quirky and belong to the new India and this is the reason why people have related with us.

My journey from behind the camera to in front has not been easy because I feel acting is one of the toughest jobs in the world and one needs to be very intelligent to constantly do that. Good acting is completely opposite to the notion that anyone can act. In fact in India, very few people know this art.

All episodes of Pitchers will first be released on tvfplay.com and later on YouTube. Tell us more about tvfplay and the reason behind creating a separate platform.

The simple idea behind creating this site was to replace our old buggy site theviralfever.com and have all our shows and content at one place. TVF-ONE today serves content experience across comedy , drama, non - fiction, musical, pranks etc and sometimes searching all of them in the sea of digital media content is tough. So we decided to create a platform where all TVF fans can find everything that we create in a nicely arranged fashion and are able to consume it at ease.

Season 1 of Permanent Roommates was a huge success. When do we get to see the next season?
With Permanent Roommates and Pitchers , TVF has pretty much become the driver of Web Originals in India. We definitely are going to have the second season of Permanent Roommates, cause it is globally the most watched long form series on YouTube and the TVF fans want more drama in this love story.

You can watch the full episodes of Pitchers here.