Geetha Arts’ new corporate identity & What we’re upto!

As people might noticed, from Jalsa (2008) onwards all of us at Geetha Arts are working towards revamping the company. From a independent producer-driven enterprise, we aspire to become a full-fledged Hollywood-like studio with a presence in film production, distribution & exhibition. Rather than a Warner Bros (owned by Time Warner), or 20th Century Fox (owned by News Corp), we’d like to be something like a Lionsgate or Dreamworks SKG, which is independent and not owned by any conglomerate.

Our first venture in exhibition is a super-success. “Geetha Apsara” is the number one theater in Rajahmundry, and has the highest ‘average occupany rate’ in South India at 72% (our estimate, even India as attendance levels are much lower up North). We have acquired another theatre Teja in Palakol (our ancestral home town) and going to revamp it soon. On the distribution front – we have a great year with Leader, Avatar (Andhra Pradesh), Magadheera & Mahatma. This year’s line up includes Pawan Kalyan’s Puli, Mahesh Babu & Trivikram’s untitled film. We’re also looking at acquiring another ‘big budget’ film.

In our ‘core business’, film production other than Dad, we have two promising producers on board, B. Madhu (producer of Tagore & Ghajini [Hindi], co-producer Stalin) & Mr. Bunny Vasu who is turning a Producer with our untitled film directed by Sukumar. So Sukumar’s film, Allu Arjun’s Badrinath are our present ‘production’ projects for the year. Add to that, the tamil dubbed version of Magadheera, which will release in the second half of the year. We’ve joined hands with a A-list Tamil producer give it a big release in Tamil Nadu.

Also, I will be joining the Producers list by taking a project some time later, this year. So, we’re going through an exciting phase of making changes in the company, bottom-up. To accommodate these needs, we need more office space. We already have two satellite offices in Jubilee Hills and taking one more. This is excluding the Southscope office, which is a subsidiary of Geetha Arts. In our head quarters in Road 45, Jubilee – we have another floor with a swanky, new Google & Twitter-like office where me, Bunny (Allu Arjun) and my eldest brother Bobby (Allu Venkatesh) will operate out of. I will upload pictures of that office soon here. I am still active in the everyday management in Southscope, but wouldn’t be next year onwards after setting a professional management to run it. Other than these, personally I have floated two small but very exciting businesses. They’re all a part of my “larger plan” and are very exciting. Will update you about them, as they roll out.

I play small, yet significant roles in Geetha Arts – what ever my father Mr. Allu Arvind delegates to me. He still runs the show, calls the shots and is backed by an efficient team who has been with him for over 30 years. Other than seniors, we have also included some new people into the senior management. I will introduce them to you later, on this blog. Amongst the works I do at Geetha Arts is ‘branding’ as I always had the knack for it. But wait, mine is not too glamorous a job! I also do “admin” work like hunting for new offices, upgrading computers & equipment. We’ve designed a enterprise software, for “project management” which is suited to our unique needs. I also got to do some classic CEO-like stuff of hiring the new top-level management & exploring new business opportunities. I am getting trained in all the departments, so that I will be equipped to do bigger stuff in the future. Read the About page of this blog to know more about my ambition.

Soon, we’re going to ramp up our presence on the online medium – which includes a website and an official company blog. My father himself wants to write some stuff! You should read them as we both have totally contradictory opinions on many issues. Also, I want to set up a strong online presence for our stars Allu Arjun & Ram Charan (like a blog & if they’re interested Twitter). Both of them are actually tech-saavy : They use Blackberries, shop & make travel bookings themselves online. For all this I am putting together a small team as support staff. We’re looking for a small, hip webdesign studio to execute this project (Geetha Arts website, Allu Arjun & Ram Charan official website) on BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) basis.

In the past, we got a brand new logo. A Mumbai-based agency “Ink Inc” had designed it. Following our bold, minimalist logo we have designed some stationary too using the same principles. So, we consciously avoided color and stuck to greyscale. Also, all the employees & stakeholders in the company approved of it. I am just sharing them with you. Hope you liked them!