Pratik Gandhi, who has won critical acclaim for his role as Harshad Mehta, the stockbroker whose involvement in the 1992 securities scam made him infamous as a market manipulator, in the web series, ‘Scam 92: The Harshad Mehta Story’ has said that time and again the OTT platform has proved to be a game-changer, content is king and the script and story are the tools of an actor.

“OTT is a game-changer. Time and again it has proved that content is king and an actor’s tools are the script and the story and not vice versa. It’s the best time for actors,” the actor told Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, during the Visionary Talk series held by the public policy and governance analysis platform.      

While giving his views on how OTT, the new entrant in entertainment space, has provided new  freedom, Gandhi said OTT is an actor’s playground where there are no  formulas, no set rules or regulations, where length of an episode can vary from five minutes to 55 minutes and each episode can be a an entire film.

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Gandhi said this freedom to create a piece of art is very important and for that reason you see makers experimenting with content and their storytelling style and even actors. He said that when the OTT platform has put an entire world at your fingertips, it has also put pressure and given freedom to Indian filmmakers who are now open to new ideas, as old and tried formulas of feeding melodrama, comedy or songs to the audience have failed for the OTT audience.

“The audience now wants to connect with the real character. This I feel is the purest forms of storytelling which connects with the audience. The audience is smart to feel any over the top disconnect and is very ruthless. OTT has proved that it is not about the money you spend; it is about the time. The success of a show is also measured on the basis of how much time the viewer has spent on that show. It is about grabbing the audience attention and time,” said the actor.

While adding that as against a film where the first three days decide the fate of the film on OTT has no such pressures and can pick up steam in later days, he said that OTT has opened a whole new world for the same Indian audience who watch and have access to the best of international series. “Their acceptance and expectation is different and language also is not a barrier because any piece of art or a film has no language as irrespective of language you will get a feel of the art.”  

Gandhi said the ‘Scam 92’ web series has been a milestone of his career so far which has taken a new turn now. “Acting in the web series has strengthened my understanding and thought process to a great extent and filming for it has been a spiritual process,” he said as he added that “each and every person working on the series excelled in the efforts … 550 pages of script, three years of research and writing, entire cast, costume, set design was a huge collaborative process.”