Wasted lyrical video designer opens up about his journey

CHENNAI: For the first three years of my career, I didn’t charge anyone and did projects for free. One because money wasn’t a necessity and two, I feel content from the client’s satisfaction,” says Venky, a 23-year-old, publicity designer for films.

Venky has worked on over 40 films like- Vikram, Sketch, Pyaar Prema Kadhal, Cobra, Doctor, KGF: Chapter 2, Jai Bhim, Beast, Radhe Shyam among many others. Talking to DT Next about his journey from a freelancer to a full-fledged publicity designer, he says, “It all began in school. I have always been interested in arts and the freedom to be able to create something beautiful on plain white paper or screen is very satisfying.

Venky

“When I was in school, I was intrigued by the aspects of filmmaking and understood how crucial a film’s poster is for it to reach the masses and is also one of the first steps to publicising the craft. This pushed me to reach out to various designing groups on Facebook and get gigs to work on.”

Venky who was still in school at the time did not feel the need to make money through his craft and was purely doing it for the sake of art. He slowly built his network and profile by making posters for short films and ventured into making lyrical videos for album songs. He says he always wanted to make an impact through his art and waited patiently for his big break; that is when Sketch happened to him.

“Since I was relatively new to the industry and was still considered a newbie since it was my first feature film; the director was a bit hesitant but believed in my work anyway,” he says. Opening up about the struggles every designer faces in the industry, he says that there is constant pressure to please a lot of people.

From the director, producer, the hero, distributors, and even the fans if it’s a big star. However, he says, the most freedom he got while working was for Lokesh’s Vikram. “When I took up the project, I was a little worried thinking that the approval of the pictures to be used in the video and the video itself will delay. But surprisingly the lyrical video for Pathala Pathala got approved very soon and they really liked it.”

Talking about the most loved and appreciated lyrical video, Wasted, he says, “After Pathala Pathala was released and it was well-received, the makers told me that they wanted to do the same thing with Wasted. Since I found the lyrics really cool and bashy, I suggested that we animated the lyrics by keeping in mind the tone of the song. It would look really good.

“They immediately agreed and asked me to work on it. I was taken aback and felt really happy knowing that I was given that space and freedom to think in such a big project was very motivating.”

Talking about his future projects he says that he is currently working on a couple of Kannada and Telugu films and is also working on a project featuring Nayanthara.