Goafest 2015: Abby is the 'most mattered' award to me, Bahl

After an insightful first half, the second half began with East India Comedy post which Vikas Bahl, Film Producer, Screen Writer and Producer shared his experience in the ad world and being a successful entrepreneur.

The East India Company engaged the audience with blatant in-film plugs, unstoppable YouTube ads, and surrogate music CDs to begin the session on the last day of Goafest 2015.

Post East India Comedy was an interesting conversation of the last speaker of this year's festival Vikas Bhal alongside DDB Mudra's Sonal Dabral. Bahl mentions about the time when advertising was completely different than what it is today. He also highlights some key aspects on how the messaging of the brand has changed and has become customer centric.

Sharing his views on the appreciation that the advertising industry gives, Bahl is of the opinion that Abby is the most mattered award to him out of all creative awards in the industry. He said, “I don't think any award has mattered to me as much as the Abby.”

He adds, “You join the army and get ready for life. I think advertising is like that. It has been my learning ground for everything.” Well indeed he gives credit to the ad world for his creativity and the person that he is today.

Speaking about creativity Bahl adds, “Writing for movies, you have to be creative once in a while. In advertising, you have to be creative every day. It's bloody hard.” Sharing an insight on writing one of his scripts he said that he had to write the script sixteen times. And the film that we (eventually) made (Queen), was actually the 17th draft. Well that itself says that a lot of creativity needs to be put in while writing, be it for a movie or for an ad film. Of course it is not a cake walk.

On a lighter note Bahl talks about how insights from the ad world can come into movies. He said, “If insights we see in advertising come into movies, it will be a very good thing.” He candidly adds, “We've got more Khans than writers in our (film) industry.” Well not that he is wrong but there needs to be more creative writers in the industry and the young minds of the country to be a part of this amazing world.

That was the end of a fantastic session which brought down curtains on Knowledge Seminars on day three. By Archit Ambekar | Twitter: @aambarchit

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