August 08, 2012 Y. Sunitha Chowdhary
When LBW released last year, many people in the film industry and the moviegoers didn't give the cast and the crew the attention they deserved despite the glowing reviews. It took a while for the condescending attitude to change into appreciation. Debutant director Praveen Sattaru took the criticism seriously and has resolved not to repeat the mistakes in his second movie.
Now the film Routine Love Story starring Sundeep Kishan and Regina Cassandra is ready and Praveen discusses his experience. "LBW was critically acclaimed but not commercially successful. I was very careful with the preparations and did a lot of meticulous planning. Distributors look at only the commercial aspect and they are not bothered if it is a good or a bad movie. LBW was genuine and unadulterated and the response boosted my confidence that there are audiences for such films. I now made a commercially viable film without losing sensibilities."
Praveen observes that making a film and selling a film are two aspects of filmmaking and he wasn't successful selling it due to lack of experience. "I put LBW in wrong hands, could not get theatres and we couldn't reach all because of bad decisions. I am now going to be careful of how I market the film. LBW was a romantic drama and its core strength was storyline but I was little loose on screenplay and making. I took the liberty because the strength was story. This time the emphasis is on screenplay and presentation and this one is a romantic comedy."
Ask him why he named it 'Routine Love Story' he explains that all love stories are routine but for the individual who is in love it is different, unique. On Sundeep Kishan, he remarks that people identify with his negative role in Prasthanam but after this work they will forget Prasthanam. He had watched Regina's short film on the Youtube and was particularly impressed with her natural performance and that she could speak Telugu was a major advantage.
He adds, "She had memorised all her dialogues by the time we went to the sets. The movie in general is about boy meets girl, falls in love with her, love at first sight and girl is hesitant about jumping into relationship. The boy has a perception about female friends, between friendship and love he has a theory. The entire film is summed up in one dialogue that comes in the first fifteen minutes of the film which kick-starts the film."
