Exclusive! Uljhe Hue Director Satish Raj says making feature films under two hours is going to be the new norm

The director Satish Raj explores modern-day dating in his latest short film Uljhe Hue . The short features Sanjana Sanghi and Abhay Verma in lead roles and is currently streaming on Amazon miniTV. 

In an exclusive conversation with OTTplay, the director opened up about short films and how films of lesser duration will be the new norm going forward. Raj has earlier worked on a short film Shor Se Shuruat in 2016. He says he always had faith in the format even though, it was difficult to convince people to watch a short film back then. But now with the OTT boom, he says there are many short format content coming up and going forward, we will be watching a lot of such short format content. 

The filmmaker says however, they are not going to replace feature films. "Feature films are there to stay as they are the soul of cinema. The length of feature films initially used to be three hours, then it moved to about 2 hours and 20 minutes. A lot of mathematics also comes into play with theatre releases. The runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes is supposed to be the perfect timing to have the best number of shows in a day. This is why filmmakers are forced to make a film under two hours 20 minutes," he says. But he observes that it is too diminishing. 

Comparing with the duration of films in the west, he says, Western films tell the same brilliant stories in one and a half hours and the reason is that they keep the story tight and crips. "In Indian cinema, we have a lot of music, songs and we celebrate that, which is why our lens differ a lot. We have about four songs and so, we have used around 20 minutes there already. So short format, in terms of 20 to 25-minute snackable content is the future for sure. But at the same time, I think even feature films are going to reduce the runtime to an hour and a half," he says.

The director is currently working on a feature film and he says he hopes to wrap it up in under 1 hour 45 minutes. "In a shorter film, your story becomes crisper and people don't mind seeing a feature-length film in one and a half hours or one hour and 40 minutes, rather than spending two and a half hours, because you'd be consuming the same story. What is the point of holding you on for another 45 minutes or an hour then? So I think this is going to be a new norm, making films under 2 hours or under 1 hour and 45 minutes," he says.

However, the actors Sanjana Sanghi and Abhay Verma, though big consumers of short format content, feel the story and genre define the runtime. "I personally think that it's just like the time of homogenization. I just feel like we're living in a time where there's space for everything for the first time and entertainment is experiencing a tectonic shift. It's finally about the stories. And each story finds its perfect group. Family Man, for example, could have never been told as a feature, as it needed the length of a series. I've just completed the film Om and I'll be heartbroken to see it on a small screen because we've created a fantasy action thriller. So, it needs that scale of the theatrical experience and joy. I feel every story is going to find its group. There's an audience for everything. And I personally consume short format a lot because I am impatient," she says.

Abhay too agrees that it is all about the story and crux of the film. "The story should reach you and touch your heart. And that should always be the first priority," he says adding that duration shouldn't be a factor. Giving examples of films like Godfather, which is close to three hours long and Irishman, which is three and a half hour-long film, he says films also need the right duration to just tell a story. "People have to take out their time accordingly. But yes, we can't neglect shorter formats too because people merely get half an hour when they're on the bed after signing off for the day," he says.