Everyone in the TV industry is after money and don't care much about the content: Creative Head Renu Rana

Renu Rana, who is currently the Creative Head of Sahara One’s Ghar Aaja Pardesi, has earlier worked on shows like Khamoshiyan, Pratigya, Rishton Se Badi Pratha, Looteri Dulhan, Kulvadhu, Kesar, Mamta, Dahhej, Haar Jeet and Geet. Having more than nine years of experience as a creative director in the TV industry, she talks to Tellychakkar.com on her long and successful career, her views on the TV industry, her experience with her current show Ghar Aaja Pardesi among many other interesting topics. Excerpts: To someone who doesn’t know who a creative director is, how would you describe the work of one? (smiles) A Creative Director is responsible for your script and storyline. He/she needs to coordinate with both the channel and production house and is responsible for the 30 minutes packaging of a show. He/she also has to deal with the casting, the look of the artistes and the costumes and is also responsible for the TRPs too. If the TRPs are doing bad, he/she may have to rework on the story again. So, he is dealing with your writers too on a daily basis. If the channel is not happy with the script he/she needs to convince the writers for another story. What advice would you give to those who want a career as a Creative Director? Since I have done my post graduation in Mass Communication, I have basic knowledge about everything. You also need to be interested in making TV shows. If you do a course, your basics are clear which comes of an added help. Do you have any mentors in the TV industry? I do not have any mentor as such and have learnt the ropes on my own. While working on umpteen shows, I did learn something from each and every show. Starting from production, I went on to make a career in the creative field where I got to know the differences between a production and a creative person on my own and gradually found out that I had immense interest in the creative aspects of television. Over the years, how have things changed in the TV industry? We are not making quality shows; we just believe in numbers. Two or three years ago, the TRPs were around 12, 13 or 14; the numbers are now 5 or 6. If we are getting a TRP like 5 or 6 these days, we feel that we are doing a good show. I feel we have deteriorated as far as the overall standard of content is concerned. Looking into the future of the Indian TV industry what do you foresee? Nowadays, the TV content comes from a film or book. So, we aren’t creating anything new. Everyone in the TV industry is simply after money but don’t care much about content. Of all the shows that you have worked on, which show/s have you been the proudest of doing? They are Haar Jeet and Pratigya. As far as Haar Jeet is concerned, we were initially making a very good show, I worked with the makers for the first six months. Then we had to take leap as we stared getting bad numbers. I had worked with Pratigya in 2012. Producer Pearl Grey had even given me the liberty to take creative calls. I had the freedom to change the scenes too. All the hard work was reflected in the TRPs too. They are now thinking of making Pratigya 2. Pratigya had ceased to be shown because it was to go on a leap and the actors weren’t too happy with the idea. How has it been like working on Ghar Aaja Pardesi? I joined Ghar Aaja Pardesi about a month and a half ago. I like the concept as it is emotional in nature. Now, we are following the main track. Before joining the channel, I felt that there was a lot of chaos on the sets but everything has now settled down. When I had joined I had felt that there was no youth story; the focus was then on a woman who has been staying away from her husband for years. I had felt that the romance factor wasn’t there in the story. That is what we are planning to do now. We will cast a new actor and focus on Devika and Rudrani’s love story. It is not that both the sisters will fall for the same guy but it will be a love triangle though. Because of certain circumstances, one of the sisters will get married to the guy.