Happy Days Telugu Movie Script Download Pdf
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Sekhar Kammula has infused some freshness in Telugu cinema with his films. His storytelling is simple, contemporary and strong in content. Sekhar's films, sans violence, which is a staple in Telugu films, are those that can be enjoyed by the whole family.
And now Sekhar is back with Happy Days, a film to do with students, college days, relationships, et al. He chose the 'actors' through a massive talent hunt. Here, Sekhar talks about his new, interesting venture slated for release this month. Excerpts:
It will be a trip down memory lane. It is not autobiographical. It is about nostalgia. The story is set in a college and it romanticises college -- an ideal college atmosphere is created. Every student would relate to it.
It took me four months to write. The basic premise for the film was the misrepresentation of the student community in Telugu cinema. We cannot name a good Telugu movie representing student times. I thought I would write about four boys and four girls who study in an engineering college. I tried to cover as much as possible and any student would identify with a character. I did not do much research for the film.
The student community today is faster and more advanced as far as career and love is concerned. Earlier the boys would hesitate to take girls out for a film. Now everybody goes out together though the emotion of going to see a movie together is the same. Of course today's students have the Internet, cell phone and cars.
Earlier students lived for four years together and nobody knew where each one is going at the end of the course. Today there is more clarity in their thinking and people know where they are going at the end of four years.
Yes, the script demanded this. Known faces would have diluted the story. Student films are misrepresented in terms of style and content. Older stars play students. Even if there are newcomers, there is a set formula and expectations. I did not want to fall into that trap. The freshness and confusion cannot be portrayed by the stars. I wanted to catch people by surprise with a totally fresh look.
It took about four-five months. In fact I had to delay the project although the script was ready. It was so difficult to find girls despite my image as a sensitive filmmaker. We went all out in the search and found that girls were not looking forward to act. It was very disappointing. Perhaps it is to do with the state of things in the film industry today. I think things will change with the change in filmmaking.
They were put through workshops and rehearsals and even dance sessions. They had to be taught the A to Z of acting. We also had to take care of them. We all lived together for 70 days in Treasure Island. There was a lot of HR work too. Since they were youngsters, we had to look into their mood swings and counsel them too.
But I had to seek permission from the College Board. I had to show them my movies and convince them. If they had not given me permission, I would have shelved the project. Luckily the Board gave me permission and it was like homecoming.
I noticed that students are more focused on studies and they were not bothered about the shoot. There was initial curiosity though but afterwards they were not. I was careful not to bother them and my unit is basically a silent one. We would also start early to get the best lighting conditions.
The story is about college life, confusion, career, love, friendship, relationship, teachers, ragging, and so on. It is all about student life portrayed in a responsible way. I believe colleges are like teachers. They should teach in order to be able to make the students think. I believe if education is happy and effortless then the mind will be happy.
They have performed better than anybody else in the business today. The audience can stand and clap and walk out calling the character's names. They will not feel the characters are acting -- it will be real.
Corporates like Pantaloons, Big FM and Reliance [Get Quote] are involved in your film. Why did you decide on the corporate tie-ups? Such a phenomenon is happening in the Hindi and Tamil film industries. Do you see corporatisation in Telugu cinema playing a big role?
Pantaloons provided 1000 costumes and defined the look of the film. This tie-up was spontaneous and kicked off from the start. BIG FM was associated from the star search itself. We needed both these corporates and they saw an opportunity and it happened. It was a win-win situation.
I felt Radhakrishnan and I are getting repetitive. Radha and I are in sync but Happy Days required new age music and I also wanted to be surprised. Mickey gave me some tunes and I liked it. Mickey has studied music in Trinity College for nine years and he has given extremely special music.
With Happy Days I had to do a tightwalk. I could not preach and had to entertain. In every frame I was conscious of whether I was sending a wrong signal since the film was all about students.The responsibility factor was high in Happy Days. It was not so in Anand and Godavari.
Why did you choose to make Happy Days after Godavari film?
I have both sweet and bitter memories about Godavari film. It was a budget failure. I expected the market of my films to grow after Anand. Hence we spent around 7 crores on making Godavari. It did well in cities. But could not catch up with the B and C centers. Godavari film - though deals with the ambitions of youth - did not cater to youth crowds.
My nephew complained that all my films cater to women. He wanted me to make a youth film. I happened to go to my alma mater CBIT one day. It suddenly stuck me that we never had any genuine Telugu college film in the last one-decade that does not deal with teen love and college politics. I wanted to capture the freshness, first love, confusion, career ambitions etc we go through in our college days. I also realized that the students these days do not have the kind of attachment we used to have to our college in our student days. That is probably due to the change in the culture. I then decided to make a film that romanticizes college life. I wrote the script in one and half months.
What was the next step after writing script?
I knew that I had to achieve two things in order to make this film work. The first one is to cast fresh faces and the second one is take permission from CBIT to shoot the film over there. I managed to get the permission to shoot my film in CBIT for free of cost. I ran talent search in Big FM and idlebrain.com and managed to get 7 out of 8. We had to cast Tamanna (an actress with experience) in one role because we could not get any right girl through talent search. We did not cast guys/girls who can dance and do good dialogue delivery. We have meticulously chosen each actor to suit the character.
How did you train these new faces?
I have the habit of distributing the bound script to each and every cast and crew member before the shoot so that they knew exactly whey they were supposed to do. But for these news guys, I gave only their part of the script. Each and every one of them would have done each scene at least 50 times before they did it in front of the camera. I am feeling lucky to get such competitive actors. They brought a lot of freshness to the film with their own styles.
Tell us about the characterizations?
These eight characters in this film are of different type - studious guy, nerd, confused guy, playboy, tomboy etc. All these characters represent different walks of life.
What is Happy Days all about?
Happy Days deals with the 4 years of undergraduate college life. The whole cycle one goes through while studying at college. This film is bound to have nostalgic effect on the moviegoers. Everybody will connect with it. This film sports a challenging screenplay. Happy Days is an event driven story. At the same time there will be conflict aspect in the film, which would sustain the attention of viewers till the last frame.
Don't you think introducing eight principle characters as main leads it self would take at least half an hour? How are you going to make sure that people get to understand four parallel tracks (between the pairs) running without causing any confusion?
For such a story like this, it is a challenging task to write screenplay and do editing. This film boasts of very strong screenplay and editing.
Who is your targeted audience?
I have a set of audiences who are familiar with my films. I would be getting more attention from youth for this film. Happy Days is an urbane flick.
Where did you minimize your budget?
I had gone for corporate tie-ups. Our tie up with Pantaloon saved us a lot on costumes front. Location charges are free because CBIT refused to charge me. I did not use any fancy camera equipment except for the hawk lenses. The remunerations of cast are minimal as I signed new faces. All the technicians worked for a relatively less remuneration and gave their maximum output. It is like a collaboration of a good cinema.
What is the response for the music?
It attained unanimous good talk. But these days we find more people who listen to songs and less people who buy music albums. People got used for free digital downloads which are affecting sales in urban areas.
Three songs in Happy Days album have same tune?
It is like the signature tune of the film. If you observe carefully these three songs have same charanams too. It gives a brand recall. And it's not bad to have such signature tunes. Veteran lyricist Veturi once told me that Ghantasala's masterpiece Pathala Bhairavi has only one raga in the entire album.
1. My commitment towards my word: I promised my USA distributor that I would be releasing the film on 14, 21 or 28th of this month. He also booked the theaters. I did not want to go back on my word. When I discussed this with AP distributor Dil Raju, he suggested that we had to make sure that the gap between Indian and USA release should be minimal. Hence we decided to come on 2nd October in India instead of 5th October.
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