Innovation & impact: Gaurav Arora discusses The Yellow Shutter’s two-year journey

In a dynamic and ever-evolving industry, The Yellow Shutter, a production vertical within Social Panga, has celebrated two years of creativity and success. Gaurav Arora, Co-Founder of The Yellow Shutter, sheds light on the inspiration behind its inception, its impressive journey, and the challenges and triumphs encountered along the way. He also provides valuable insights into the creative process, collaboration, and the strategic vision for the future of this innovative content studio.

Congratulations on the successful two-year journey of The Yellow Shutter! Could you share with us the inspiration behind starting this production vertical within Social Panga?

We started The Yellow Shutter couple of years back with a vision to give our passion for storytelling a platform and leverage the art of filmmaking and visual content creation, an innate part of advertising, to its best. It was an obvious next step for us at Social Panga, especially after accomplishing the work we have done with some of the top brands in the country.

It is the dynamism of the industry and the content verticals that drew us towards, not just talking about how videos are some of the most important pieces of content, but actually creating it all.

Over the past two years, how has The Yellow Shutter contributed to the overall growth and success of Social Panga? Could you highlight some specific ways in which the production house has positively impacted the agency’s operations?

The Yellow Shutter started as a passion project to cater to our internal clients and to bring the work of our creative teams to life. In the last two years, we grew and explored a variety of content and realised our capabilities and that only the sky’s the limit.

The Yellow Shutter has bought in over 20,000+ still shots, made 310+ films, and worked with 40+ brands. As we head towards conquering more peaks with our creative and award-winning content, this contribution from TYS adds a lot of value to our overall offerings. The vertical plays an important role in our next steps for our long-term vision.

Today, The Yellow Shutter team has expanded our capabilities beyond just Bangalore and Mumbai, and we now have the strength to shoot in over 15 cities at once, with our extended network of partners and vendors.

It has positively expanded our offerings towards our brands and brought all requirements for content under one roof. Be it short or long-form content, extensive brand films, case studies, and everything in between, we can execute under one roof.

The Yellow Shutter has worked with an impressive list of brands over the past two years. Could you share a few key campaigns or projects that you're particularly proud of and why they stand out?

Each and every project has a story behind it and for us, every single one of them is close to our heart because that is what each project means to us. If we take it up, we do not rest till we give it our all. Be it roaming the country covering Femina Miss India 2023 for Reliance Trends, shooting with Rohit Sharma for Infinity Learn, or going around the streets of Bangalore covering one of our highest award-winning case studies, #GuardiansOfTheHeart for Manipal Hospitals, dancing with Nora Fatehi for Cakezone, being the core digital content team at IIFA 2022 and 2023, the Winter Shoot for Trends in the Delhi Metro, each project has a memory and an amazing team that becomes stronger with each shoot.

Some other memorable and outstanding campaigns were done for Zepto, UpGrad, Himalaya Hair Care, Himalaya Baby Care, MamaEarth, Jingle creation for Abu Dhabi Knight Riders, Chola MS General Insurance, a fun shoot with the Indian Women Cricket Team for Yatra, Tata AIG, Karnataka Bank, Eatfit, Extamarks, Mothers’ Recipe, General Mills, Supercoins (Flipkart) and so on.

With over 100 films produced in such a short span, could you shed some light on the creative and logistical challenges you've faced during the production process? How did your team overcome these challenges?

Like any other start-up, a small team plays the most crucial role, and everyone does everything. The most exciting part was the shuffle between Bangalore and Mumbai. We think the team spent more hours at airports and cabs and on set than inside the office. From calls at midnight with global clients to finding a network in Guwahati to transfer shoot data to understanding the nuances of the industry on a daily basis has been both exciting and challenging.

But we can surely say that not one day was monotonous and the core team is therefore the pillars of The Yellow Shutter. Undertaking and executing shoots across 11 cities, at the same time, turned out to be a cakewalk, planning and executing the content creation was IIFA was the cherry on the cake. All this gave us the confidence that we have the right set of passionate people to build this into who we are today and the heights we aim to achieve in the future.

One main challenge as a business was to set ourselves apart in the industry and not follow the same blueprint. And as we tread carefully on that new path with each brand, each film, each city, and each piece of content that we create, there has been literal blood, sweat, and tears over the last two years to build a strong foundation. Like any business is to its founding members, and the core team, The Yellow Shutter is our baby, and we are very protective of it!

As co-founders, how has your vision for The Yellow Shutter evolved since its launch in 2021? Have there been any unexpected directions or opportunities that have shaped the vertical’s growth?

Our initial vision was to create a production house as an internal vertical and leverage the market opportunity for creating more dynamic everyday content as we saw reels and short-form content boom and the rise in requirement for content creation and ad films from the Social Panga clientele.

What we didn’t anticipate was the scale of expansion and how the industry would be so receptive to The Yellow Shutter, the new kid on the block. Our advertising background and expertise definitely added to the confidence brands and agencies needed to better connect with us and we reciprocated to our clients on similar wavelengths. So far, we have been able to cater to their very specific and custom needs.

Collaboration and teamwork are crucial in the creative industry. Could you discuss how you’ve built and nurtured a collaborative culture within The Yellow Shutter, especially as you’ve expanded the team across multiple cities?

People are the core of any organization as they will always be on the front lines of bringing business and brand visions come to life. We are in the business of people.

The Head of Business Growth and Strategy Dilpreet Kaur Sandhu has worked with us for a while at Social Panga. With her formal education in the field of Video Production, her passion for photography, and her marketing background she was the obvious choice to get this baby off the ground. And together we started to build this team to fulfill our vision and add more like-minded people on this journey.

Our Head of Production, Harsh Pandya, started his career in the industry as an 18-year-old working as a spot boy and intern at the heart of the industry in Mumbai. His expertise of over 10 years of getting his hands dirty to understand the industry, added fuel to our fire and here we stand with a well-connected team of 12 members.

Our third pillar came into shape with our Lead Post Producer, Muddassar Bondre. With similar roots in the industry having started from the very bottom, he now leads a team of some of the most talented post-production experts, across cities, working round the clock to take all projects across to the final leg of production.

Each of these members and the larger team of today and the leaders of tomorrow are a well-knit unit who travel together, understand each other and have made The Yellow Shutter and us their extended family.

Looking ahead, what are the strategic plans and goals for The Yellow Shutter in the coming years? Are there any new directions, offerings, or verticals that you’re excited to explore?

Building The Yellow Shutter into a full-fledged content studio, in the last couple of years, we have scaled and executed our plans. The coming years are going to be about going deeper into those plans.

Our current model gives us room to grow and expand. Our aim is to build expert verticals focusing on Ad Films, Brand Films, Corporate and Employer Branding content, Case Studies, Short Form Content like Testimonials, Vox-Pop, Podcasts, Vertical Content Creation, Sonic Branding, Product and Model Shoots, Event Coverage and Content Creation, Jingles and more.

While our offerings will not change drastically over the next year, we do aim to get into the OTT and the world of entertainment.

The world of media production is rapidly evolving, especially in the digital age. How has The Yellow Shutter adapted to these changes and remained relevant in the face of evolving industry trends?

Marketing took a turn for the good about a decade ago, and since then it has been one of the most dynamic and fast-evolving industries and is the core of today’s global consumer. The key has been to keep your eyes and ears open and more importantly be receptive to these changes. As we see AI’s growing impact on the marketing industry, our aim is to utilize these new tools and technologies and learn and adapt to incorporate them to their best in our work.

Our thought is to Never Get Comfortable. The team at The Yellow Shutter believes in continuous learning, that’s the only way our hunger for new and better can be fulfilled in the long run. Hence, we keep our shutter open always!

Could you share some insights into the process of conceptualizing and executing a successful ad campaign or film? What are some key factors that you believe contribute to the effectiveness of your work?

This is one of the most “FUN-damental” parts of our work. The Yellow Shutter caters to agencies and brands alike. While some of them come ready with a script and structure, others come to us with an idea. Along with our creative minds, we sit and understand the brand, and its competitors, do a market analysis, and come up with ideas that work to their custom needs. The process begins with research, it is key, the initial concept thoughts going on to scripts, mood boards/ storyboard, onboarding the team that best fits the budgets, finalizing locations, cast, costumes, and shoot timelines, PPM and finally setting foot into execution.

The list goes on. If we were to lay down each and every item that goes into our process, this interview would go on for a few days!

Multiple experts come together to bring to the table a thought that translates into storytelling on-screen.

While the above showcases the glamorous side of our work, the flip side consists of differences of opinion, non-availability of people and places, the funds, the legal processes, and the negotiations that go behind putting a single day of shoot of 8 hours together!

While having one of the fastest TATs in the industry has been our area of expertise, setting expectations with the agency or brand is one of the toughest tasks.

Even as we say this, we would do it over and over again in a heartbeat!

In terms of creative storytelling, how does The Yellow Shutter approach balancing the brand’s message with engaging and authentic narratives? Are there any specific techniques or principles you follow?

The core of making any good film is research and consumer insight. Our creative process works in a unique way to understand the brand, understand the client’s objective, and use our creative juices to make something unique. The idea is to always check the relevance of the communication, the brand’s tonality, and the persona before jumping into creating something. Every brand has its limitations and to work creatively within these set boundaries is a challenge we love to tackle. We believe in spending time brainstorming internally, talking to the target audience and with the client, and enjoying the process before jumping into any stage of production.

Storytelling and creativity are subjective and to understand and walk this fine line is the task we undertake and get attached to every single day multiple times.