Producer Mamta Yash Patnaik on success of her shows: Have always tried to break the mould

Submitted by TellychakkarTeam on Sun, 09/13/2020 - 20:00

She is known for bringing contemporary, engaging and unique stories to the television with her craft of being a writer-producer and Mamta Yash Patnaik does one helluva job with it! Her shows such as Rang Badalti Odhani, Kuch Rang Pyaar Ke Aise Bhi and more recently Ishq Mein Marjawan 2, has ruled the TRPs and gathered massive fan following with the viewers. Mamta says that she along with her husband Yash Pataik have a vision for their production house Beyond Dreams Entertainment and it is beyond just providing stereotypical stories. “We have always strived to break the mould and create something new. Acceptance by the audience in terms of appreciation as well as ratings is very reassuring. When we started Kuch Rang Pyaar Ke Aise Bhi, it was an experiment with the trend of high drama and melodrama. We tried a narrative which was subtle and organic. There were no villains, no scheming, no kitchen politics, no extra marital affairs, no fight for property and no crash zooms. Lot of industry friends feared that the audience would not accept it. But we were sure the audience is always hungry for something good, they accept it if you serve them well and with conviction. Kuch Rang Pyaar Ke proved us right for 500 odd episodes. It created a cult narrative, got maximum rating for television show on IMDB and was voted the most loved television series in a global polling by Times of India and received a Billion plus viewing on Youtube. We created three timeless iconic characters in Ishwari, Dev and Sonakshi. We also introduced a new talent to the industry with Erica Fernandes,” says the talented producer.

The visionary producer is currently focussed on Ishq Mein Marjawan2, which is the second season of the show by the same name. Talking about what worked for the first season, she says, “When you take forward a brand like Ishq Mein Marjawan, which had a huge following, it’s a challenge to repeat a similar admiration and following. It’s even more challenging when you have a completely new cast and a story to take the brand forward. What worked for us was new grammar and a narrative we had devised for Ishq Mein Marjawan. We had created the format which could help us create multiple twists and turns to keep the audience engaged with unexpected twists and turns. Every character we created was complexed yet lending themselves to the story seamlessly. It was a challenge to keep the audience glued with a story of a thriller for 500 odd episodes. We broke the age-old tradition of keeping the hero ‘Right’ and the heroine ‘Naive’. We created a new ‘Grey’ for television hero and heroine in Ishq Mein Marjawan. Keeping the tradition of Beyond Dreams alive, we introduced a new heroine with Alisha Panwar and created three iconic characters in Deep , Tara and Arohi,” she says.

What brought on the idea of Ishq Mein Marjawan 2? “The success of Ishq Mein Marjawan and love of the audience for the genre was the seed for more. So, when we started conceiving IMMJ2 it was even a bigger challenge as we had decided to come up with a new story, new characters and new casting. The only thing that we retained was our narrative, which was ‘Expect the unexpected’. We knew the audience had seen a lot of twists and turns and they would not accept anything less, so the ‘Grey’ had to be ‘Greyer’ and the ‘Twist’ had to be ’Twisted’ Hence we created ‘Vansh’ and the world of Raisinghanias. We had a challenge to create a new ‘Antihero’ like we had created a new ‘AntiHeroine’ in Season 1 in Tara. When I was creating Vansh, I was careful to create a villain who would be loved and feared at the same time. Who would break the trends and make his own rules? In season 1 we had casted a popular actor Arjun Bijlani as the male protagonist, " Mamta breaks it down for us.

Adding to that, she goes on to says, "Hence in Season 2 we got a comparatively fresh face to play Vansh, the antihero. Though we had a choice of casting a top television star, we decided to rather create a star with the character of Vansh. Rrahul Sudhir turned out to be a good choice. He took efforts to understand Vansh and seamlessly became Vansh. It all started when I saw his first audition out of 50 odd auditions and asked the team to stop auditioning more people as I had seen Vansh in Rahul. I had a certain vision of Vansh’s character in my mind and I briefed our director Noel on exactly what I wanted. Noel has been with us for more than 10 years and aligns with my vision very well. Noel did a perfect mock shoot of Rahul, and I was even more convinced of my choice. It’s very satisfying for a creator to find the right actor for a character. Rrahul proved it with his hard work, dedication, and commitment."