Balaji launches new business unit Balaji Spark

Spark will be the talent management arm of the production house

Balaji Motion Pictures Limited (BMPL) has started a new business unit named Balaji Sparks, which will be the talent management arm of the production house. The new unit will be under BMPL and will be headed by Firoz Engineer, who will report into Tanuj Garg, CEO, BMPL.

After Yash Raj Films, Balaji is the second production house to have an in house talent management unit.

The talent management arm will focus on nurturing discoveries made by the television and film production houses and will include creative and technical talent.

It already has six clients on board including Rajat Tokas & Paridhi Sharma - the lead pair of historical drama, Jodha Akbar on Zee TV; Siddharth Gupta and Ashish Juneja, the male leads of Balaji and Bejoy Nambiar’s forthcoming comedy, Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi; Akshay Roy, the debutant director of the untitled Dharma – Balaji film and Ekta Kapoor, joint MD at Balaji Telefilms.

Garg says, “For years now Balaji has been instrumental in launching talent and we thought it is only fair we leverage the brand Balaji through the talent management business unit. At Sparks, we will not only look at the film or television projects that come the clients' way, but also look at extending their brand equity through tie ups with other relevant brands and promotions.”

He adds that for the first year of operations, it is not about volumes, but about establishing the unit as a credible talent management outfit that is not only bothered about the commission that comes its way, but is focussed on guiding new talent that enters the industry in every way possible.

Engineer who has experience in talent management during his stint at Globosport says, “The need of the hour for cerative and technical talent is to create a lasting brand equity and taking it across channels of communication. The avenues of reaching your fans today is numerous and the focus will be to utilise all means possible to make sure our clients' career is on the right path.”

For example, the television actors are a big hit in the diaspora audience residing in UK, US and South Africa and thus Spark will look at international appearance and performances for the talent it is managing. Similarly, for directors, Spark is looking at tapping into speaking assignments at institutions and creative fora.

The unit will work on a commission based model as is the norm in the industry. The fee will be decided from project to project depending on the scale and size of the assignment coming the talent's way. The team currently includes 3 to 4 people apart from Engineer. The management is yet to work out its synergies with the Institute of Creative Excellence (an academy for creative talent that Balaji has interest in) but Engineer points out that the Balaji group has a lot of opportunities to offer within it own operations.

“Anyone associated with Spark will have first hand exposure to productions from the Balaji banner, whether it is television or films. Having said that, we are open to taking care of talent not from Balaji either, provided the ideologies match,” he says.