MUMBAI: Justin-Uday are the latest in the line of professionals who have crossed over from the advertising world into the lanes of Bollywood with elan.
With Sikandar, they make their big debut soon. Shortly after, they will begin work on Kunal Shivdasani’s next project and also on a movie titled Fishbowl… which will have a complete seventies feel to it. The duo own twin studios -Riversound and Backwaters- designed by Didier Weiss, who also designed A R Rahman’s studio.
Despite being entrenched in Hindi films, the composer duo remains an active part of the advertising world, with a string of campaign successes behind them that includes the Incredible India’s ad for BBC, Sharktooth Vodka TVC, Mirinda TVC, J.K White Cement TVC, Dabur TVC, Hyundai Verna TVC and an Airtel TVC.
Related Post
Not surprisingly, it is their work in the ad world that has fetched Justin and Uday their Bollywood projects, but their film assignments have also been noticed and appreciated by the advertising community, leading to more ad work.
Advertising is good for the pockets and takes care of expenses, the excitement of being part of movies is a different equation altogether, says Justin on the eve of the music release of Big Pictures’ Sikandar.
The duo have composed music for movies such as Hijack , Saas Bahu aur Sensex. Speaking on the transition from advertising to Bollywood, Justin says that there is a separate credibility altogether that is attached to being part of the movie industry and having their credits attached to the films they work on gives them a feeling of achievement and pride.
Though Hijack, for which the two received a Stardust nomination, did not do well on the commercial front, Justin feels that they were appreciated for the music they composed. He says something both have learnt with time is that the publicity and promotion for a film are crucial to the success of its music.
Elaborating, Justin says that a song they did for Hijack – Koi Na Jaana, into which they had put their blood, soul and life… was not promoted properly, which led to people not even knowing of the track’s existence. Only Aksar… was promoted which received a good response.
According to Justin, the experience of working on â€?Sikander’ was a memorable one. Producer Sudhir Mishra gave them enough freedom to experiment with new sounds. The film has been directed by Piyush Jha who was an ad film maker earlier and his approach to the entire movie was modern and fresh. He says it is not about promoting the Justin-Uday style of composing but about creating music that is ideal for the movie and blends with the theme perfectly. There was no fixed framework and the freedom given to them allowed them to rope in singers that they felt were best suited for the songs.
Justin and Uday have composed four songs in all for the film. The title track is Gulon Main followed by a Mehndi song sung by Shilpa Rao called Maanzraat… which is the Kashmiri equivalent of the word Mehndi…. The lyrics have been written by Kumar who has worked on films such as Raaz 2, Dostana and Om Shanti Om. The other songs on the album include Allah Hu… sung by 13 year old newcomer, Yash with lyrics by Kumar as well as Chaal Apni…. The move Sikander… is set for release on 27 March.
Justin says that the two would now love to work with other directors like Ashutosh Gowarikar, Karan Johar, Mani Ratnam, Subhash Ghai, Yash Raj as well as Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt.
The two go back a long way, when they met at school as they were both part of the band for the National Cadet Corps. They played in two bands in their college days – one that performed in English and the other which was fusion based. They toured a lot in those days and stage shows are something they miss deeply. According to them, performing on stage is a different experience altogether and hopes that with a few more films under their belt they will be able to tour and perform once again. They tried entering the film industry 13-14 years back but it was too difficult to penetrate into as a monopoly existed at that time. They now feel that the industry is more open minded now to new talent.
