A unique venture Filmy Breaks releases film-based songs created by musician Prashant Pillai and singer Shreekumar Vakkiyil
Shreekumar Vakkiyil and Prashant Pillai
It sounded like a really difficult mission, and no doubt, it is. But here are two musicians — two really busy musicians — who take time off every few days to come together and bring out a new song based on a film they loved, new or old. It is independent music, and yet, not far from the cinema they both love and work for.
Musician Prashant Pillai and singer Shreekumar Vakkiyil have big ideas for their pet project ‘Filmy Breaks’, and as their third song has just come out, they are more than determined to take it forward.
Prashant Pillai is on the line, and he tells it like a story. It all started, he says, when he came across a video of Shreekumar Vakkiyil singing with his dad. Prashant was then on the verge of starting a new ensemble of musicians, something to do with spirituality.
But not religious, he specifies. And there was Shreekumar on a stage performing traditional Sopana Sangeetham. Prashant dialled his number, convinced him to move to Bangalore from Delhi, so they could do something together. It was while they were working on the idea that Filmy Breaks happened. “We had made around 10 to 12 tracks for our ensemble, but it didn’t cross our benchmark. So we let it rest, and thought about doing something else,” he says.
“We are both inclined towards film music, so we thought we will capitalise on this,” Shreekumar says. That was the time the Amitabh Bachchan-Deepika Padukone starrer Piku had come out. Both of them had seen the film and had their own ideas about songs to make. Shreekumar wanted to make one about the spirit of letting go, and Prashant wanted one connected with the death of the main character in the film. Both got written. Shreekumar is fast at writing songs. The next step was composing it together and finally Prashant would produce the song. Beh Jaane De was made with Shreekumar’s theme of letting go, but a second song with Prashant’s theme will also come out soon.
“The first one we released is however a song based on the film Bombay Velvet — Asman Ki Godh Mein,” says Shreekumar. There was a moment in the climax they both wanted to write about. “It is actually a funny incident,” Prashant says. “The trailer and promo of the film looked promising but the reviews were slamming it as the worst film ever. I wanted to validate it for myself, and Shree and I set out to watch it. The last scene however stayed with us.”
OK Kanmani was next. Only Prashant had seen the film but he shared his idea for a song with Shreekumar. “Prashant connected to a moment when Prakash Raj’s character was looking for his wife. In the movie, the perspective is from the angle of the hero and heroine played by Dulquer and Nithya. But how does Ganapathi (played by Prakash Raj) feel when he is unable to find his wife Bhavani?” That became an Ashtapadi ‘Radhe Radhe’.
The collaboration between the two musicians began much earlier, four years ago, when Shreekumar sang for Prashant’s City of God. They later worked together in Nee Ko Njaa Cha, Amen, and Chandrettan Evideya. When he is not singing for films, Shreekumar would work on his band ‘Sopanam Ensemble’, or else teach at a couple of institutes.
Prashant on the other hand is not only busy with his many music projects — his last being the songs of Double Barrel which will come out in a day or two — but also organises motivational talks and writes books. He is busy with a Find Your Passion workshop that he’ll be touring with across multiple cities. “It started in my college days when I was the first to raise my hands and speak for the whole class every time a question was asked. One teacher started giving me a day to prepare a topic so I could teach the class once she gave an intro.” His two books — These Simple Things For a Great Family Life and Kickass Creative Careers in Film and Radio — will be out in September.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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