Mumbai : Self-made superstar Bhuvan Bam rose to fame with much loved ‘BB Ki Vines. Now, he has become the first Indian digital content creat...
Mumbai: Self-made superstar Bhuvan Bam rose to fame with much loved ‘BB Ki Vines. Now, he has become the first Indian digital content creator to launch his independent web series, Dhindora. Now, Bhuvan shares how he doesn’t want to wait for a comedy special to land on his lap or an OTT executive to take notice of his talent. He also opened up about how he has worked 16 hours a day to get each of his 10 characters right and talks about that though life has been tough for the last few months after his parents passed away due to coronavirus, he firmly believes the show must go on.
Here we bring you the excerpt from his candid conversation with WION.
WION: First of all, congrats on ‘Dhindora’. I have watched the first four episodes and it is hilarious. So, you are the first content creator to come up with his own web series where you are the heart and soul of it. Tell us what prompted you to take up this project? What was the thought behind this? Tell us everything about ‘Dhindora’.
BB: It came from a thought that what if I take these characters out of the room (referring to his YouTube skit, ‘BB Ki Vines’) that I’ve been shooting for the past five years. What if I show people that now they can see those characters from head-to-toe, and you can see them move, see their legs and you can see them like you see actors in any other movie or a series. So, that’s where ‘Dhindora’ idea popped in. There was a story we had in mind and then we started writing it. ‘Dhindora’ was a movie earlier. But then we decided to make it episodic because that’s what OTT platforms are doing right now. Eventually, we decided to keep it on YouTube for people to watch. And, that’s the back story of ‘Dhindora’ in a nutshell (chuckles!)
WION: So you mentioned OTT platforms, and that’s my follow up question. You have no backing from say a Netflix or an Amazon Prime and you are all on your own. How easy or difficult was it for you to create ‘Dhindora’ all by yourself? What are the challenges you faced along the way? Or, how do you think you are at an advantage by doing this on your own without the backing of any OTT giant?
BB: I mean, really, we knew that we had to do this on YouTube. We could have have taken this to any other OTT platform. But, it would have been really unfair to the people who watch my content because this is the first series that we are doing on ‘YouTube’, which involves my universe. So, it would have been, frankly, very unfair to the people you made it for, people who have been watching you for five years on YouTube for free. And then suddenly, you take this big step of taking those characters out from YouTube to some other OTT platform: that would have been pretty unfair for them. So it was a conscious decision to keep the show on YouTube—and for free. We can’t wait for any other platform to give us an opportunity to create something, we can do it on our own. And we can do it on YouTube. That was the main idea behind it.
WION: From what I understand—based on what I have watched so far—‘Dhindora’ is essentially a satire, a commentary on society, right? Please talk about the underlying themes that you have tried to project in the series, through humour, of course.
BB: The theme is, see there’s a story that is going on throughout the show. But, apart from that, what this series really stands for is the importance of family, the importance of relationships, and how, when we are 18-19—when we are too young—how we take these relationships for granted. It also is a reflection on how the society’s treatment of you can change with time.
WION: I know you have been asked this a lot in the past, but, I still wanted to know now that your skit has taken the form of a full-blown series. How do you manage to get into one character, snap out of it and then take on a completely new role? How do you play so many people all at once?
BB: I mean, practically, back to practice (of juggling roles). I’ve been doing this for five years now. So, I know how to switch between different personalities. But now that we were shooting full length characters—we were showing them move around—we were technically shooting a movie. So I think (there was discomfort) in the initial few days. Gradually, I got a hold of it because they were people who were working on the costume aspect of it, and so on and so forth. The idea was that no characters should look similar to one another. And that’s what we tried to do the entire show. See acting is something that I knew I could pull off. But how do we make them look different? How do we make them look convincing? And you keep showing them without losing their originality. How do we make them look different from each other? And that’s where I will give to the entire credit to the make-up and costume team. As far as switching between characters is concerned? I don’t know. It wasn’t tough. But, yes, I was stuck in a loop. Because we had shot for 41 days straight and every day, we used to shoot for 16 hours without fail because I was the only actor on set (laughs!) So in these 41 days, I may have slept two hours or an hour-and-a-half a day. I think we just wanted to do this without thinking of (the end product).
WION: Is ‘Dhindora’ going to be a proper series with maybe a season 2, 3 and 4. What’s the future?
BB: Frankly, I don’t know what the future is. But, I internally know that there has to be something that should follow up with this (the series). We are working on it. But right now, the main aim is to concentrate on the first season and the upcoming episodes. But, yeah, it is definitely on our mind.
WION: The past few months have been extremely difficult for all of us, especially you. I wanted to know from you since you have done so much work—like you mentioned, clocking 16 hours a day, two hours of sleep for 41 days straight. And your personal life had hit all-time low, too. Where do you derive the strength from to keep going, to keep at it: your energy in the face of adversity is truly remarkable.
BB: I mean, see the things that affect you personally, you can’t let them interfere with your professional life. There are days when you don’t feel like working, there are days when you just feel like sleeping. But then, you realize that, ‘okay, there are other people who are attached to the project’. And you can’t you can’t just stop and lock yourself up (in a room). Aap ke personal life main jo bhi chal rahaan ho, woh aapka problem hai… It’s your problem at the end of the day. So keeping professionalism in mind, you need to work for the people who are related to the project, and I’m working alone on this. There are so many people who are earning through this or there are people who will eventually earn money from it. You can’t let these things come in the way of your career.
WION: Considering you toiled so hard for this project, was there a sense of solace for you from everything that’s been happening in your life: maybe while filming it or by just being on set? Was it some kind of ‘comfort zone’?
BB: It was (my) comfort zone because I knew what I had to shoot. But, in terms of production, it was a new experience—including me—and for everyone else. Because we haven’t shot something like this and probably not many people have done this: to play 10 characters! I was the only actor and it was a learning experience for everyone. And till the 30th day of the shoot, people on the set and our entire crew was clueless as to what we were shooting. And then when the trailer arrived, everyone realized, ‘Oh, this is what we were shooting’. It was a very tedious shoot. If you think there was only one actor, so I had to act for the character and then I had to go and change for the other actors, which was very tedious and I’m glad (I did that).
WION: A lot of digital content creators are going The Netflix-Amazon Prime or Bollywood way. Are you toying with the idea or is something already in the pipeline? What are your thoughts on mainstream acting gigs?
BB: I think there’s an idea we have, but it’s a far-fetched idea and it will eventually happen. But for now, we need to concentrate on the things that we have and let’s finish what we have right now. And then we’ll think of something that involves Bollywood or some other OTT platforms.
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