In conversation with Ayyappan Raj, The Script Room

Ayyappan Raj is the Co-Founder at The Script Room, a writer hub that focusses solely on video content – television commercials, digital films, branded content, short films, feature films and any form of audiovisual content.

Agency Reporter – Can you walk our readers into understanding what The Script Room is?

The Script Room is like a personal writing room for the advertising, marketing, entertainment industry. It’s a place created with just one thing in mind – to write and write really well. Since we started last year we have been writing and producing some of the most well written stories, for brands like Netflix, Oyo, Chumbak, Groww, Beck’s Ice. And two commissioned projects for long-format content.

AR – How does The Script Room add value to digital journeys for businesses?

I don’t think anybody sees digital as a separate thing anymore. It’s a part of day-to-day life, for us both as consumers and as advertisers. We add value to the brand, business by bringing in our expertise of storytelling. What we have managed to achieve in most of the work that we have put out is, ‘storifying’ – of the product experience, product feature, product benefit. Humanizing the whole thing, both in terms of the central idea and final execution is what’s working for the communication.

AR -You’ve held senior positions in creative agencies. When and why did you decide to launch The Script Room?

Except a few initial years in programming I spent most of my career in advertising and most of it in Lintas – worked in four offices of Lintas and last was in Singapore working on the Unilever business.

And, both me & Ramsam have been wanting to create a place of our own for long but we never really pursued it. It remained as some kind of a jolly discussion to spend an evening on! I had come to Bombay in December 2018 for the new year’s and we both met, but this time we decided to finally act on it.

AR – What are the main stages of Writing for advertising films?

Like all great things, it starts with an idea – we jam a lot on arriving at the central thought, that’s the first thing that we do. Then it’s about figuring out the right tone of voice, funny or endearing or purposeful, etc. Once both are in place, we spend the same or more time in crafting/writing for the duration and budgets, factoring in all the production constraints.

AR – How important is Brand’s Tone of Voice in your trade?

It’s supremely important. It pretty much defines the brand. Sometimes the idea dictates thetone of voice and sometimes the brand’s tone of voice dictates the idea.

AR – What were some of the most successful campaigns that you have done and the results retrieved from it?

We have done over 40 films in the last one year. We won the Star ReImagine awards for the IPL campaign of Netflix. Our work on OYO has been celebrated for its insightful stories. And the ‘So, what are you watching?’ campaign for Netflix is an Effie Finalist.

AR – Since writing is a solitary art, how does one maintain discipline? What is your process from brainstorming to ideation to production and how long does it take?

In our case it’s two parts, cracking & crafting. Cracking is collective, full on jamming and brainstorming. Crafting is done independently. Of course there’s some solitary part but in our line of work it’s not like ‘sit down at a typewriter and bleed’ kind of a solitary.

And in terms of time, since we’re a few and we’re focussed only on one part of the business, we tend to get to the solution faster. So we don’t really take that much time. We also follow a simple turnkey model, we call it script-to-screen, where we take the brief, write out, work with production, supervise and handover the final film. In roughly 6-8 weeks depending on the scale of the project. The fastest one has been 3 weeks.

AR – Has the coronavirus affected your line of business? If yes, how are you managing to continue to create content, given the limited resources in these times?

It has affected like how it’s affected most of us. But like they say necessity is the mother of invention, we are continuously figuring out ways to work with production, with all the limitations and still put out great work. We did a fun project, which was written, produced during the lockdown, got released on Humaramovie. Two more shoots are coming up in the next few weeks.

AR – What are your predictions about the future of advertising writing and content marketing in the coming years?

I recently saw a meme saying, ‘Can we all agree that in 2015 not a single person got the answer right to the question, where do you see yourself in 5 years from now’. So I really don’t want to do predictions, but whatever shape advertising & content is going to take I’m sure it would be as challenging and as exciting as it has always been.

AR – Is there any advice you’d give to young creatives & executives on how to pursue their passion projects on the side?

Pursue it wholeheartedly but please be mindful of being too hard on yourself. There’s a lot of external, social, peer pressure that’s on every one of us, when it comes to wanting to be more than ordinary. While it’s a fantastic thing to happen that we’re all striving for excellence in multiple aspects of life, at times it also takes away the joy of doing things. I don’t mean to say that one shouldn’t push themselves hard, everyone should, as long as they’re enjoying it. Do it for fun and everything else will follow.