Kannada filmmakers turn tech savvy!

Kannada film makers are reaching out to an influential and enlightened section of young audience through blogs, internet and You tube in recent days.

And the results are tickling in to show that the Kannada films are benefitting largely due to these new promotional drives. The blogs and are providing the Kannada film makers a better platform to reach out the young audience who form a big segment of audience backing the Kannada films.

And the feed back obtained from such promotional techniques in the internet is clearly visible when many computer savvy producers acknowledge the benefits of such promotional drives.

More and more number of people are viewing the videos of trailers of songs of the Kannada films on Youtube these days. Young director Prakash who had directed Puneet Raj Kumar starrer Milana which was released last year says that the Radio Channels and Internet medium has really helped the film to become extremely popular among young audience.

Milana's popular song Anthoo Inthoo Preethi Banthu which was upped in YouTube eleven months ago has more than one lac six thousand visitors. The promos of Golden Star Ganesh's Galipata directed by Yogaraj Bhat which was uploaded on 18th Jan this year has had more than 1.07 lac visitors.

And according to the information obtained from Psycho producer Gurudath one popular song Poojege Bandhe Maadeshwara has been viewed in Youtube by more than one lac viewers so far, though the song was released only a month ago. Maathinalli Helalaarenu song of the film Bombaat featuring Ganesh and Ramya which was uploaded in Youtube on 2nd July (the day of the audio release) has had more than twenty thousand visitors already.

"The promo trailer of the film Psycho has also become a big hit. We started the promos uploading three weeks ago, but I think it had more than 35000 visitors. We have sent e mails to various people interested in Kannada films and they have uploaded promos and audio songs in all online video and audio sharing outlets," says Gurudath. Devadatta, the director of Psycho says that the film has now become a talking point mainly because of the popularity of the songs which were continuously being promoted in Radio Channels and You tubes. "Though we have not released the song picturisation CD's to the channels or you tubes, the songs broadcast in the Radio channels and internet have really helped the film to gain wide publicty," says Devadatta. Incidentally, the producer and director of the film Psycho have not revealed anything about the artists of the film. "We have deliberately not revealed anything about the artists of the film or have released any publicity material on them. You will not see a still of the film published about the film" says Devadatta. Psycho has been released now in Karnataka for a huge response. The music director of this film is Raghu Dixith who is a debutant, but has already become a household name in the state.

A song of Taj Mahal which was upped in you tube just a month ago has been rated as best with five stars and has been viewed 8992 times within a month. Compare this with the hit song Kariya I Love You from a Block buster film like Duniya which was upped ten months ago and which was seen 9356 times so far. Mungaru Male trailer which was introduced an year ago has 25000 visitors in You Tube.

Chandru, the director of Taj Mahal says that the people who had bought the audio albums have shown personal interest in uploading the songs in various you tubes. "We had given promotional trailers to various television channels and Kannada film websites which have also been used by you tubes. This has particularly helped my film," says Chandru.

Actor Ramesh Arvind who has recently directed the film Accident says that he has extensively used the internet blogs to promote his film. And says that Accident was the first Kannada film to have a voice portal.

"Accident is the first Kannada film which had a dedicated voice portal. My voice was used in the portal to guide the callers to various aspects of making the film. Wifi company had designed the portal. Trailer of the film was provided to Kannada film industry websites on the day of the launch of the film. And the trailers were regularly changed and we made optimum use of the portals to derive maximum publicity benefit for our film. All the songs were on you tube," says Ramesh Arvind.