Mega serials give way to cool web series for Chennai youngsters

Switch on the TV and you have a woman being shot in the head and delivering a 15-minute dialogue, asking her husband to bring her poo (flowers) where there is a bullet hole — instead of pottu. There are also humans turning into snakes. Youngsters who seek engaging and relatable content find themselves short of options. Enter independent content providers, who use YouTube to deliver some good original content that talks about the day-today issues people of our time have to face. 

“We turn to Netflix and HBO series to watch great television content. Some of these, such as Game of Thrones , can give a bigbudget Hollywood movie a run for their money. Back home, we have nothing when it comes to quality content on TV. We were inspired by some Hindi web series that became instant hits and that’s how our show came about,” says Balajee Ge, writer of Ctrl Alt Del , an original series by Culture Machine’s YouTube channel, Put Chutney. 

“The story revolves around a bunch of IT employees and their day-to-day issues. In India, after someone finishes college, he/she finds a job and then they are expected to get married. There is also peer pressure to get into relationships. I wrote the story that any of us could relate to,” says Balajee.

Black Sheep is another series by Stray Factory’s YouTube channel, Rascalas . This series talks about the story of a confused engineering student. “Most of the cast and crew oft the team are in their 20s and the story itself is inspired by the real life story of Shyam who gave up engineering to pursue his passion for creative pursuits like RJing and stand-up comedy,” says Madan Thapa, from the marketing team of Black Sheep.

Talking about the technical challenges, Hari Haran, Director of Ctrl Alt Del, says, “You cannot compare a web series with TV shows. They shoot it on a daily basis, but we don’t. Also, their scale of production is massive. However, we do have a proper script and we decide the look and the feel of the sets. For instance, many think that the pub shown in the series is real, but it is actually a set. Also, we get immediate feedback in the form of comments and we have room for making changes.”