You always know in the beginning what is the end: Abhijeet Kumar on Life of an Executive Producer

The Indian film industry is over a century old whereby it has passed through various stages and paradigm shifts. Once upon a time, there was ‘studio system’ where even the Superstars worked on salary. Later, independent producers emerged who produced a significant number of remarkable films, which were commercially viable as well got critics' accolades worldwide. However, now the film industry is more organized than ever and a big share of credit goes to the Executive Producers who are running the industry and the film productions in a more organized manner and within optimum finances.

Abhijeet Kumar, an Executive Producer, Who has successfully completed over a dozen projects as an Executive Producer has recently done a film ‘Part Time Job’ directed by an eminent journalist and writer - Piyush Pandey starring Shreya Narayan, Hemant Mahaur and Pravar Pandey. Abhijeet’s earlier film like “Aavartan”, “The Web”, “An Unknown Guest”, “Mount of Excellence” has been premiered in Festival De Cannes, International Film Festival of India and many other International film Festivals. He shared some surprising facts about the roles of an Executive Producer. “Earlier Executive Producers were not given much importance in the Indian Film industry and the roles and responsibilities of an Executive Producer or a similar title were not much well defined. With changing times, the industry has become more structured wherein the Executive Producers are the ones who integrate the entire film project including creative management, financial management, and overcoming the production chaos and conflicts. The film production process undergoes innumerable changes from the beginning till the final output and coping with those changes demands a lot of strategies, patience, resource management, and leadership skills” he shared. 

Talking about the critical role-played by Executive Producers, Abhijeet said, “We can say that Executive Producer works as an entrepreneur where we must be able to anticipate the end at the inception itself…are we going to have a film that will do good at the box office? Is it worth investing a certain amount of money in the project? The realistic answers to all such critical questions are under the purview of an Executive Producer. Personally, I as an Executive Producer, want to help debut filmmakers who have excellent script and talent to direct a film but don’t know where to start.” In a nutshell, the Executive Producer has a leadership role so that the Director can do the job without any hassle.