The Hindu Business Line : Media Dreams plans to make four movies in '04

Apart from this, the company will start two television serials in Tamil, one for daily show and another for weekly. The Tamil writer Sujatha will script the serials, the company's Chairman, Mr V. Chandrasekharan, told Business Line.

Media Dreams is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pentamedia Graphics Ltd, which is into entertainment software and production of animated movies.

"We are studying a few scripts for the movies," he said. But the titles have been chosen for the weekly TV serial — Sujathavin Kadai Neram. The weekly serial will be from fresh scripts written by Sujatha, while the daily serials will be based on stories that the writer has already published.

Media Dreams has produced some Tamil films such as Bharati and the Kamal Hassan starrer Pammal K Sambandam. Its turnover has been varying between Rs 15 crore and Rs 30 crore a year, depending upon the number of movies produced each year. Mr Chandrasekharan said that he expects the company to reach a turnover of Rs 100 crore in three years.

He said that a few aspects of technology were about to revolutionise movie making, and that the Pentamedia group was in the vanguard of things there.

First, shooting movies using digital camera would bring down the costs drastically. Digital camera would obviate the need to use costly films. Typically, for a 15,000-ft film, about 100,000-ft of film is used while shooting, which is then edited down to size. Second, adding special effects is easier if the original is shot with a digital camera.

Media Dreams has just released a `cross-over movie' (Indian movie in English language, such as Mr and Mrs Iyer and Monsoon Wedding). This movie, called Knock, knock, I'm looking to marry you, was shot at a budget of under Rs 1 crore.