Young Entrepreneur Shreyans Hirawat On The Changing Dynamics of Movie Releases and the Evolution Of Bollywood Business

NH Studioz is a part of Narendra Hirawat and Co which was founded in 1980. NH Studioz is in the business of releasing upcoming movies across the globe. The company also offers an extensive post production infrastructure and services set in one of the most accessible locality of Mumbai.  It includes a luxurious preview theater, a well-equipped Recording Studio, multiple edit suites and other services such as facilitating sound recording, dubbing and animation. Young entrepreneur Mr. Shreyans Hirawat, Managing Director of NH Studioz spoke to us and gave an insight on the vision and mission of NH Studioz. Here are some excerpts from the interview below.

When and how did the company get in the business of Bollywood and Entertainment?

My father, Mr. Narendra Hirawat is a pioneer in the business of re-releasing Bollywood movies in the territories which are untouched by a film. He started in the year 1980 and got the negative rights of the cult movie Amar Akbar Anthony starring Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor. Back in those days, the concept of re-releasing of movies did not exist but my father had the foreseen this possibility at that time. Once the concept gained acceptance among the Producers of movies, we started acquiring more and more movie rights. Right from the year 1980 to 2017, we have a collection of over 1300 blockbuster films which include movies of other Indian languages as well.

How do you preserve the movies for such long durations?

For years, our company has seen the format of movies evolve right from the VHS to Hard Disk and to the latest Cloud Storage. Negatives of a particular film are the best source of quality and it is essential to preserve and keep them intact. Keeping this in mind, we have a dedicated team of professionals who work round the clock. At regular intervals the negatives of our movies are scanned in the best possible format and stored in cold storages at regulated temperatures.

What are the kind of innovations that NH Studioz has done since its launch in 2015?

Buying the negative rights of the movies has been the core business of the company and we have seen things evolve in this space. In the 1990’s when Zee came into the picture, we were the first to give them movies to telecast. Even today in 2017, we were the first to provide Jio with movies for their platform. With time as the medium of transmission is changing, we keep on adding content to the new platforms so that we can reach out to Indian’s in every possible way. Tomorrow, if there is an innovative new platform that might come up, we will be open for discussions with them as well.

What are some of the achievements of NH Studioz?

Our first big project came in the form of Pink. We got the worldwide distribution rights for the movie and released the movie after a thoughtful strategy. The movie had a very different and gripping content so we also planned some other promotional campaign for the movie keeping in mind the serious content that the movie talks about. Before releasing a movie we keep in mind the kind of content and the topic instead of just the commercial value. Pink was later followed up with Shivaay and 2016 ended on a good note for us with Dear Zindagi. We believe in distribution of content in a customized manner and maintaining complete transparency and trust. We release movies after analyzing the content, mindset and taste of the people in the territories that we release. If we do not cater to the audience as per the liking of their taste, there are high chances of negative word of mouth publicity of a particular movie which in turn impacts the business at large. That is the reason all our films have run for minimum 7-8 weeks.

What are some of the businesses that you are venturing into?

Very recently, we have started with visual promotions and packaging. We basically make trailers, dialogue promotions and do everything that can give the first positive visual impression of the movie. I think the first feel of the movie needs to be taken special care of because that’s when the audience decides if they would watch the movie or not. We have already completed Jolly LLB 2 successfully, and there are some interesting projects lined up ahead.