Amar Chitra Katha On Dd Soon
Publishing major India Book House and United Studios Ltd have joined hands to co-produce a live action version of IBH's comic books Amar Chitra Katha. The series will go on air on Doordarshan (DD1) from August 9 onwards.
For many years now, the move has been under the company's consideration.
Says P Mirchandarni, director, IBH, "We had proposals from several production houses. But we were not confident enough about these. It took us 30 years to build the Amar Chitra Katha brand and we did not want to squander it all away by giving it to the wrong people."
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IBH has also entered into an agreement with Phoenix Global Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd to produce the Chitra Kathas on CD-ROM, digital video disc and as animated films. These tales have also been put on the Internet.
The series will comprise stand-alone episodes except for some which might be staggered over two weeks.
Popular mythological stories such as `Prahlad', `Narad', `Gopal and The Cowherd' will be telecast every Sunday at 12.00 noon. The first episode will be on `Angulimala'.
The venture has cost IBH and USL Rs 4 lakh per episode, including the expenditure incurred on special effects
The additional expenditure was also because more than one episode could not be shot at the same time as would have been the case if the programme had been a serial with continuous episodes.
"Animation would have cost us over Rs 30 lakh," says Mirchandani. Even now, the initial investment is being made by both companies without any sponsor.
IBH would also like to make a video magazine based on their other popular comic book Tinkel, but not immediately, says Mirchandani. "We would rather wait and see how ACK does on television," he said.
IBH has been in the business of publishing for fifty years and owns 436 titles based on Indian history, mythology, classics and folklore.
USL is a joint venture between United Television and 20th Century Fox. Starting out as a company exclusively handling post-production work, it has recently started co-producing television software such as the television serial `Woh'.