Exclusive! Shankar Mahadevan: OTT sends out a strong signal to traditional directors to make good films

OTT has indeed opened up a new horizon for the artists and technicians of the entertainment industry. We see people who have not been around for a while creating a niche and a huge fan base for themselves. During an exclusive interaction with OTTplay, musical trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani, Loy Mendonsa) and Nikhil D'Souza spoke at length about how even musicians are getting new opportunities in the world of OTT.

Nikhil, who composed music for Modern Love Mumbai's title track, Mausam Hai Pyar, told us, "It's opened up a whole new avenue for everyone. I think even people who have mostly been doing Bollywood films. It's just refreshing in a way also to just experiment with something else. Sometimes in films, you are restricted by people above you telling you what single you should use or who you should use here. I brought one of my best friends, Pinky Poonawalla, to write the lyrics for this song (Mausam Hai Pyar), and no one was there to tell us otherwise. I brought on the people I wanted for this project, giving us full freedom to do what we wanted. I enjoyed that. I think what's happening here is that there's a scene that is being created that is also an alternative to film music. But people in the film industry will take notice of what's happening here and understand that you can have different approaches to creating a song and it works well. They will see the audience reacting to it. I feel it is just going to feed off each other and be."

While Shankar, who sang Shuru Se Shuru from the anthology, gave an interesting take, stating, "It's also a kind of, I would say, a signal to the traditional kinds of directors who have theatrical releases to start making good films."

To which Loy added, "Yeah, the change can either come from within or from the outside, so here's a new kid on the block, redefining all the rules."

While Shankar went on to say, "It's a new world altogether. It's given opportunities, not only for musicians, for technicians, for the spot boys, for all the actors, people who do not depend only on a big theatrical release, or any film, which comes and goes. So many actors have come back into the scene, and they've been appreciated. It's so refreshing to see a big bang of talent out there. It's amazing."