Sunshine Pictures' strategic approach to film production

Sunshine’s debut production Force, under its banner, was a box office hit. Since then, the company has produced and distributed prominent, commercial and socially relevant films such as Commando: A One-Man Army, Holiday: A soldier is never off duty, Force 2, Commando 2: The black money trail, The Kerala Story, etc.

Many of its productions such as Force, Holiday: A soldier is never off duty, Human (web series) and The Kerala Story and their cast have bagged various awards, such as the Filmfare Award, the International Indian Film Academy award, the Stardust Awards, the Global Film Award, the Apsara Film Producers Guild Awards, the BIG Star Entertainment Awards, India, the Indian Telly Streaming Awards, the Bollywood Life Awards, the Dadasaheb Phalke Film Foundation Awards, the Iconic Gold Awards, the Zee Cine Awards, etc.

Sunshine’s production, The Kerala Story, emerged as the highest
return-on-investment blockbuster in 2023, reflecting the company’s
ability to balance commercial appeal with critical acclaim, according to the D&B Report.

Sunshine has a differentiated, innovative and resilient business model. Its innovative business model encompasses comprehensive industry network and Intellectual monetisation expertise. It introduced international talent in India and made them stars. Its innovative structures adopt high-quality standards and technology driven content creation.

It is specialised in multi-formats commercial films. It emphasises innovative story-telling and production techniques. Its prudential approach maximises revenue potential – reigning in the cost of talent and optimising other costs. It offers end-to-end marketing and distribution. “Economical approach and ability to make high quality films/projects at viable costs reduces financial risk,” explains Shah. “Our de-risked business model offers predictable returns”.

As a production company, Sunshine adopted a prudential approach to film-making and has strived to keep a tight control on end-to-end production budgets, without compromising on creative vision. In order to achieve this, it implemented a no cash or minimum cash payment policy, striving to make all the payments, including the daily cost associated with shootings of films and web-series, through banking channels. Its economical approach and ability to make films/projects at viable costs reduces risk and, to an extent, ensures that, in case the movie is not received well at the box office, it does not incur financial losses.

In the case of commercial film projects, where there is a higher risk-higher return, Sunshine adopts two different models. In its own production, it finances the entire film. It executes end-to-end production, marketing and promotion of the film. It monetises through sale of Over-the-Top content, music rights and downstream derivatives. In co-productions, it partners with reputed studios. It has a fixed fee arrangement and a guaranteed profit regardless of box-office outcome.

The web-series, TV series and other shows are medium to low-risk returns. In web series, it finances projects and executes end-to-end production. In TV series, the initial investment in production is of up to 30 serials. Initial investment in production based on deal terms with respective platforms. It gets TRP linked incentives. Others include music labels and music rights exploitation. Talent management social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. 

Sunshine undertakes cost optimisation in identifying talented directors/actors at the early stages of their careers – A.R. Murugadoss, Abhinay Deo, Aditya Datt, Barnali Ray Shukla, Deven Bhojani, Sudipto Sen, Kanishk Varma, Nishikant Kamat and Mozez Singh, among others. In the case of top movie stars/actors, it offers a share of the profit from the movie in addition to an upfront fee. In terms of locations, Sunshine chooses those that offer attractive subsidies and tax credits, while, in terms of technology, Sunshine looks for opportunities to leverage technology, which shall facilitate to reduce location cost, bring down editing, dubbing and other post-production cost and improve speed to market.

To optimise overhead costs, Sunshine has a lean corporate structure. It offers a competitive fee structure for actors and crew members. On-set accountants manage payments, track daily expenses and ensure expenses are in-line with the budget. In the post-production stage, they conduct in-house editing for creative reasons. They outsource the dubbing, sound, VFX, and video post to different studios while closely monitoring those activities.

Creative supremos

An entertainment company is only as good as its team. Sunshine Pictures has a stellar team. The company is guided by individual promoter and whole-time director Shefali Vipul Shah, who is a national award-winning actress, with a career spanning over 25 years across various genres and formats in Indian film industry. She has acted in Hindi films such as Satya, Monsoon Wedding, Gandhi, My Father, Dil Dhadakne Do and Once Again. She has also won numerous awards, including the Filmfare Award, Stardust Award, Tokyo International Film Festival Award and Asian Academy Creative Award. She received the National Award (Best Supporting Actress) at the 55th National Film Awards and has acted in recent films and series such as Darlings, Doctor G and Delhi Crime, among others. She was nominated for International Emmy’s Award in 2023 for her performance in the category of Best Actress for the web show Delhi Crime. Other promoters and whole-time directors, Aryaman Vipul Shah and Maurya Vipul Shah, who joined under succession planning strategy, represent and offer fresh perspectives and contemporary industry insights and are working towards scaling the future of the company.

At 29, Aashin Shah, vice-president, production/co-producer, won the Achievers Award at the first edition of Youth Big Screen Awards in 2015, for being the youngest executive producer of the Indian film industry. In 2016, he marked his debut as a co-producer with Force 2, a box-office success and followed it up with Commando 2, Namaste England and Commando 3. He has completed his degree in Master of Commerce from Malini Kishor Sanghavi College of Commerce & Economics and his post-graduate diploma in event management from the National Institute of Management. He has 17 years of experience in the field of production. His roles and responsibilities include overseeing pre-production, production and post-production activities; attending/co-ordinating meetings, appointments with talent, agencies, studios, social media agencies, vendors, etc, appointing of crew in all departments for a project, negotiating deals with cast, crew and vendors.

Ravichand Govind Nallappa, COO, completed the diploma in commercial education in specialised accounting & income tax, from the Institute of Indian Merchants Chamber, Mumbai. He has previously worked with B.R. Films, Metalight Productions, Indian Performing Right Society and Rajshri Media. He has over 24 years of experience in the field of business and administration, distribution and operations, especially in the M&E industry. His roles and responsibilities include overseeing activities including administration, finance and legal; attending/co-ordinating/fixing meetings and appointments with business associates, studios, etc, and all other work related to operations of the company.

Sunil Karda, CFO, is a qualified chartered accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, with over 17 years of experience in the field of accountancy
and audit.

A pipeline of projects

Sunshine has many new films and web series planned for the next few years, a good mix of low-, medium- and big-budget productions. It is co-producing two film projects with Jio Studios, one of which, Hisaab (star cast: Shefali Vipul Shah, Jaideep Ahlawat, Abhishek Banerji, et al) is being scheduled for release in 2025. The company is producing one web series for Doordarshan, which is streaming on its channel and OTT platform. The upcoming film projects are Good Morning Rhea, Governor, The Kerala Story 2, Buldozer, Samuk, Kaanha and Bheem; while the web-series projects include Maaya, Nanavati vs Nanavati and Whistle-blower.

To respond to rapidly changing tastes and the emergence of new demographic cohorts, Sunshine plans to produce a more diverse mix of films catering to different genres, and across multiple formats to meet different preferences and to maximize coverage. It already has a music label, Sunshine Music, and is endeavouring to grow this vertical.

Sunshine team plans to leverage new business opportunities and make the necessary investments to enter those areas. These could be within the movie production value chain, like studios, outsourced VFX and post-production services. It could also be in related adjacencies such as strengthening music label, where their core competencies and relationships with the best talent in the industry can help build up a good content library over a 3-to-5-year period which can generate a steady revenue stream.

Sunshine intends to embrace new age media leveraging digital convergence, rapid technological developments in augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) (AR and VR are technologies that allow users to interact with digital content in a simulated or virtual environment). It plans to hire the necessary talent, build the right partnerships and leverage content library to fully participate in these opportunities. In addition to driving growth and profitability from the operating leverage, it believes that embracing new age digital media will also help it connect with the younger generations, collect data on audience tastes and preferences and use those insights to tweak content to further enhance the audience experience.