A Quote by Kiran Rao

I think when you make something that is non-mainstream and people don't have automatic way of consuming, like you don't have a big star, or a hit song or marketing money then you need to find some way to make audience aware of your film.
There is always pressure. If you make a flop film then you are under pressure to make a hit film. If you make a hit film then you are under pressure to surpass your own standard or at least deliver another hit because the audience also has expectations.
I think it's what we've always tried to do, is just find a unique way in, and find a unique way to be true to what the character is from the comics and what fans are aware of and expecting. And at the same time do it in a way that mainstream audiences and as wide an audience as possible can find their own way into it.
Obviously, artists need to make money and stuff like that, but if you do something good or if you make good art or make good stuff, the wealth will find you in some way.
There are many things in life that you feel you need such as television, magazines, teachers telling that you have to make money and be successful, but if you have some kind of hope, something to hold onto, then all this will no longer be important. If you can make your next day better than the previous one, then you will see what it really means something to you and not everything that people think you need for your life.
I am a great believer in what we've been told time and time again by people like Joseph Campbell, "find your bliss." Find out what it is that touches you most deeply. Pursue it, learn about it, explore it, expand on it. Live with it and nurture it. Find your own way and make your own contribution. Find a way to make a contribution to this society because God knows we need contributions from the coming generation. This planet and this civilization is in need. I see it as a time of need.
Those of us who make films try to make something that we're feeling and that we would like. Then we just hope an audience responds the same way. It's very important to have the electrical circuit made, but I don't have control over how people feel when they flip the switch. So the whole idea of marketing research and test screenings is just foreign to me.
No matter which way you do it you need to make something happen and get a song that makes you feel a certain way, whether that's making you tap your foot or beat someone up or whatever you're doing, you just need some passion about it.
Star cast is very important, for the songs to fly again. You need someone like a Shah Rukh Khan or a Salman Khan, a big star in the film. They will make sure that the song is taken to a different level.
It takes so many people to make a success story like that. It starts with the song and the songwriters, then Mark Wright's producing, all of the players that played on it, me singing, the marketing department, the promotion department at the label... It takes a lot of people to make a hit like that.
I think the way the audience takes the Indian film-star is a little different from the way the audience takes the Western star there. We are considered like demi-gods here, and the reason is not because we are better or good, but because there is no other mode of entertainment in India.
You make a film and you can't really pick the way it's put to the public. You control the content, but the way it's marketed, or the poster, or what they're telling the public about the film, it's beyond you. Some people don't even see them, because they think they already know it. That can be frustrating, when something you've done is marketed in a way you think is antithetical to what it is.
One of the things that sets Oliver Stone apart though is he is commercial. He is mainstream. He makes big movies and he is one of the last guys that can make big movies that actually have something to say, that you know challenge the audience in a way while entertaining them.
A film star is a film star, and you can't take that away. Hence, I don't think about money when I do films, but I will do it for TV like the way I do it for endorsements.
You have to have a certain amount of limitations, I think, to make art and to make something that can be alive on film. Money can get in the way of that.
I never want to record something that I'm not proud of just because I think it might be a big hit. There's no positive about that because if you record a song you hate and it's a big hit, then you're singing a song every night that you hate. And if you record a song that you hate and it isn't a hit, then you sold out for no reason.
If the only thing that you want to do is make money - if that's your whole motivation - I think you're lying to yourself. If the only motivation you have is to make money and make it, what's making it? Oh, you get a yacht or an island. Well, you're going to need someone to be on that island. You're going to need people, one way or another.
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