Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
Pranay Khajuriya: Colored Glasses On is the brainchild of Five enigmatic People Ravi Shankar, Dev Khajuriya, Yash Mehra, Vinay Kumar, and Myself Pranay Khajuriya. We met across the premise of a film school where we revisited the works of master filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Mani Kaul, and Kamal Swaroop. The invigorating passion to create films like these people and hopefully best them someday was our goal. I hope they would not mind me saying this!!
Our aim is to present the world with a different outlook to make films that offer a unique vision to the viewers. Our conceptions lie around surrealism, neo-realism, postmodernism, expressionism, and impressionism. It is important for art lovers and audiences to appreciate art that is unique and encompassing. Only when you appreciate the old you can transcend towards the new. All this brought together coined the term “Colored Glasses On” which means perceiving the world with a unique outlook. So, we say “Your Dreams, Our Colors”.
Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Colored Glasses On
Pranay Khajuriya: We cover all aspects of Film making from Pre- Production, Production to Post-production. Our skilled personnel provide you with a one-stop-shop for all aspects of filmmaking and Videography. We have Filmmakers, Screenwriters, Cinematographers, Editors, Di Colorists, and VFX artists. As we know most of the visuals in a movie are defined by the sound incorporated in it. For that matter, we have a Music Studio as well with skilled sound engineers for sound design, Foley, music composition, song-writing, and Sync sound. Further, we deal in Creative Photography and Graphic Design as Well.
A major part of Filmmaking is distribution. Some Great films have been undermined due to this particular aspect. The Creation part of the film is so cumbersome that while coming to distribution the efforts are exhausted especially for independent filmmakers. To resolve this, we have in-house celebrities and influencers base of about 10,000 people to promote and project a piece of work. From Script to Screen we cover it all.
Great Companies: What makes Colored Glasses On different from hundreds of other similar service providers?
Pranay Khajuriya:
As I have mentioned earlier, we cover all aspects of Filmmaking from Production to distribution. When it comes to film studios in India either they will cover one of these aspects. Promotional Campaigns are designed and targeted by different companies in general other than the production one despite some major names like Yash Raj and Dharma Productions. When it comes to Delhi NCR which has become a major hub for filmmakers recently there is no entity as such.
With the enormous Film city being created in Noida and the burgeoning demands of the audiences with the rise in OTT platforms we can be a medium of creation and projection all in one place. Moreover, Films are either Commercial or Artistic there are no in-betweens. We thrive on this aim to commercialize artistic content.
Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?
Pranay Khajuriya: The French Film Theorist Christian Metz Said “Film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand”. The statement has echoed through the ages even more in the current age. Audiences and clients can disparage a piece of work in seconds as the film is such a widely exposited medium and everybody is there to comment on your work. Studios and independent filmmakers will always be bothered by such notions of people about films.
All you got to do is to keep making films which you will love. If you can love it everybody else will. Secondly, videography is saturated to an extent and clients sometimes take a lot of time to differentiate between a Videographer and a cinematographer. They still believe why we should hire someone when we can shoot with our mobile phones!! Only your work can speak at these particular moments.
Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Colored Glasses On?
Pranay Khajuriya: Well, this will follow up with our Acronym for the brand – CGON.
C – Creative – We aim for an acclaimed body of work that is creative and has commercial value as well. With International recognition through film festivals circuits and OTT platforms. Secondly, with every new project, we will aim for different genres and different character tropes. I think five features and one or two web series are not too much to ask! (laughs).
G – Goodwill – To build lasting relationships with clients and industry experts. Five years down the line we would target at least 50 permanent clients and 100 potential customers. The film is a collaborative medium and with relations, nothing can be conceived in this industry. We will prioritize this equally to our creativity benchmarks.
O – Originality – In General filmmakers while planning to work on a film revisit the works of master filmmakers to base their work. It is how all the greats work from Steven Spielberg to Sam Mendes. But there is still a lot more to this medium than is understood after all it’s only a hundred years old. We will respect the masters of cinema but keep on looking for new aesthetical and technical means to make a film or project an idea on the screen. Hopefully, we will invent something like the bullet effect of the Matrix.
N - No Excuses – As basic as it is we will always thrive on discipline and passion. As Steven Spielberg said in an interview “You can shoot a film with a phone and post it on YouTube and not worry about the cost of an 8 mm camera’s Film strip”. We will try to create the best visual and auditory elements given the constraints and resources for the clients and the audience.
Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice for someone just starting out, what would it be?
Pranay Khajuriya: Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! That’s one piece of advice you can give to budding filmmakers. Despite that indulge more in the pre-production stage of the filmmaking process. Filmmakers assign most of their time in production or actual shooting than in the pre-production stage. This results in poor outcomes and more costs. Plan your budgets, schedules; call sheets, props, and locations in advance months before the actual shoot so that if any anomaly arises one can cope with it. There are so many elements involved in video production that with my given experience no day will be the same as you expected you have to redefine yourselves at the very moment for that it is quite important that everything is planned beforehand. Plus understand the distribution aspects of filmmaking as well which we undermine most often.
Challenge yourself with not just new things but things that your artistic conscience does not prefer or acknowledge. Many budding filmmakers try and make things just to project their artistic vision. They forget the commercial and business aspects of it. As Nagraj Manjule said, “ It should be my medicine in your bottle” when it comes to a feature film presentation. Make films write stories that have never been told before but write them for a universal audience. A film that could cross barriers of territories and languages.
Comments