Exclusive! Meet Siddharth Sinha and Shalibhadra Shah, the brains behind the world's first cinema marketplace ABC Talkies

ABC (All Bout Cinema) Talkies, a Gurgaon based film-tech firm claims to be the world's first cinema marketplace that provides a facelift to filmmakers as much as the content they produce. The content, ranging from a 1-minute film to a 150-minute length feature, across multiple languages and genres, can be watched by viewers on their portal via the pay-per-view model. This is a free marketplace open for anyone and everyone, be it independent, amateur or first-time filmmakers who can monetise their content and also receive assistance from the team of ABC Talkies for their work to draw eyeballs. The idea here is to provide a showcase for the filmmaker and give them wings to fly later. ABC Talkies is co-founded by Siddharth Sinha (Chief Content Officer) and Shalibhadra Shah (CEO).

Shalibhadra Shah has over two decades of experience in marketing, communication and design industry and has groomed several startups, established businesses, besides closely working with the state and central governments, handling their audio-visual needs. Siddharth Sinha has been part of the entertainment industry, knows the media world in and out and has 18 years of experience in the event management space. In a chat with OTTplay, the two tell what helps ABC Talkies stand out in the overcrowded digital arena.

As a platform, you're here promising to create a brand for filmmakers ahead of their content. What explains this strategy?

Siddharth: I have been a part of the film industry. I started my career as an assistant director. From what I understand, everybody who wants to become a filmmaker doesn't get a chance to be in the industry for various reasons. This is a very competitive industry and the problem with the filmmakers is that they may not always be as competitive because they are ultimately storytellers. When it comes to marketing and promoting themselves, they fall behind. So many talents in the country don't get their due for the same reason. A producer who seeks Rs 100 crore business out of his project may not be willing to trust a newcomer. We, thus, wanted to create a platform that provides a path for a filmmaker to fulfil their dreams. 

We are asking independent filmmakers to show their work to the world. The product for me here isn't the film but the filmmaker. Such talents can be pushed to OTT platforms and production houses, where we give them ample proof that the filmmaker can make a commercially viable film in any medium. Most amateur filmmakers today rely on YouTube to upload their short films with the hope that it would go viral and someone would identify them. We give them a platform where the film gets a better chance to do well commercially. The metrics can later serve as a report card. We're giving a better chance for 'a nobody' to become 'somebody'. If I produce 10 quality filmmakers from the platform, I'll happily retire.

You're even giving the filmmaker a choice to price his/her content. How does the model work?

The filmmaker in most cases, regardless of the medium, doesn't have any choice about the money they can earn from their work. It's decided by how much theatres or OTTs pay. Here, we are giving the filmmaker that choice to demand how much he wants from the film. We don't want them to beg/borrow but instead demand it for their craft. It's a two-way street. We are here to create opportunities for them. Additionally, the filmmaker must push people to watch their content. Our platform is very transparent and the money filmmakers demand goes directly to them.

A storyteller, who has already made a film and wants to sell it to an OTT platform, goes through months of paperwork for his content to see the light of the day. Will the filmmaker have some respite at ABC talkies?

We just take 48 hours to upload the content and only use that time for the curation. We pick people randomly across the country to watch content. It gives the idea of the film's pricing and indicates how much that a filmmaker should sell it for. They get a realistic indication of what they can expect in return. The curation goes through a very complex algorithm, it's the first of its kind in this space and gives weight to the common man's verdict. The algorithm is a mix of human interface, machine learning and artificial intelligence. 

We have a horizon of two years to perfect this algorithm and it keeps evolving with time. It compares the response of every curator with the public verdict over time and gets a practical estimate of a film's commercial potential. As the demand for the content increases among the audiences, the filmmaker may even decide to increase the price. We allow it to change as per popularity, like an airline ticket. 

How do you finalise the price for a film? Does it depend on the length of the content too?

The pricing method is quite clear and transparent. Most OTT platforms these days opt for a revenue-sharing model with producers where the OTTs promise to share a certain percentage of the amount they are going to make from the content. However, the data about the viewership and the money the platform makes aren't always reliable. In our case, we give whatever the filmmaker earns. The price has four divisions - a base price decided by the filmmaker, an operational cost decided by the duration, a convenience fee that a filmmaker may want to charge (the returns from this too will go to the filmmaker) in addition to a tax component. We also suggest the filmmakers with the pricing but our verdict doesn't need to be final. Some may approve and disapprove of what we say and that's completely alright because the filmmaker has the final say. 

Why do you think customers would opt to watch content via a pay-per-view model on your platform when they are already spoilt for choice, tired of choosing among the content from 50+ odd OTT platforms available in India alone?

We agree that the customer is spoilt for choice and also go for a pay per view format. Whereas most OTT platforms have annual, monthly subscriptions. ABC Talkies will still work because digital content consumption has grown exponentially over the last few years. Would you believe that 70% of viewership for Youtube comes from India? It is because people want to watch content. The content becomes viral because people watch it and they don't mind paying for the good ones. The audience is hungry to watch content from nooks and corners of the country. We're not saying it, the surveys confirm it.

We have not yet started doing consumer marketing yet but we can tell you that the average customer is very particular about watching diverse, unique content and wouldn't settle for conventional outings. For example, take Radhe and The Family Man. Which had the bigger star and what went onto earn more acclaim from audiences? Besides, viewership comes from ex-pats of different regions too. Not every film will go viral. If I have something exclusive on my platform, audiences will come to watch and they'll return for more. There's no worry about a subscription too here. How many customers would opt for Amazon Prime Video if they aren't inclusive of the shopping benefits? Netflix has mostly shared accounts, for which a customer pays nearly Rs 700 a month. There may be a boom today and people may subscribe to most platforms. However, someday, they will start rationalising and pay only for what's needed. If I watch one film every week, pay per view makes more sense. 

On one level, you are competing with OTT platforms for attention and on the other front, you are open to selling them your content. Isn't this a complex relationship?

All said and done, you need to accept the fact that OTTs are growing every day. There's a new OTT platform coming up every second day. It's a war between them to garner as many subscribers as possible. However, how are they getting the content for the platforms? It's either through a franchise or a distributor channel. If a newcomer approaches an OTT platform, the streamer may not be sure if the film will do well without a star cast or a big technical crew. At ABC Talkies, we give them a method to the madness. We show them a proven track record of how a particular film has performed and hint at its commercial viability. OTTs become our clients, do window shopping, they do certain business and take the content to their platforms. We are only happier to see more OTT players entering the market; it means more business to us.

Though you had launched the platform in 2020, you reportedly didn't receive great feedback from industry experts and decided to relaunch the brand this year in February. What were the bottlenecks in the earlier version of your model?

We are ultimately a film tech platform. Technology can't be created overnight and the customers may or may not like it. While we were ideating it, we went to Mumbai to share the idea with the film fraternity to understand if their needs were being met (through the platform). When we understood that it wasn't, we have built it again from scratch and relaunched it in February. Our technology has evolved to an extent that we may allow other brands to use our IP in the future.

Were there any learnings from the mistakes that your competitors made in the recent past?

Most of them weren't exactly wrong in what they did. Our idea though is to promote filmmakers. That's where we majorly differ. When you go to platforms that specifically promote indie content, the platform owners remain the gatekeepers of the content upfront and only target selective indies. They may adopt a pay-per-view model but only a niche group of filmmakers make it to those platforms. They don't represent the plethora of content that our filmmakers produce. A filmmaker is a frustrated person because he/she still doesn't have enough options. Youtube, he loses out on a lot. There's no guarantee that he may make even recover the production cost. Our platform is Youtube for films, but it is not in the public domain and there's every chance that OTTs may acquire it after noticing the popularity. It's a need we have identified. It's a void that no other platform is currently addressing. Our differentiator is that we are going beyond a pay-per-view format for the customer and the filmmaker.

Was it surprising to notice responses from African filmmakers to showcase their content on your platform?

When we (re)launched ABC Talkies on February 26, 2021, in Ahmedabad, the idea was to get a few films before we opened the platform to consumers. A few were sceptical but the responses picked up from April where an African national from Facebook contacted me about uploading his film on the platform. They even told us that Indian filmmakers are lucky to have something on the lines of ABC Talkies and despite producing so much content, Nigeria doesn't have so many options to showcase films. They were thrilled about the idea. They wanted to do the revenue earning through our platform according to the African market. We're coming up with a model where a filmmaker from any country can upload content and showcase it to their audience without routing it via India. We're in talks with filmmakers from Africa, Pakistan, the USA, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The situation of an indie filmmaker is similar across the world. We want to create a glocal market. 

Also read:Award-winning Odia short 'Ravaiyaa' out on ABC Talkies