“Another OTT?!?”; “Literally a garage start-up?”; “Commercials?”; “Aksband?” — my questions added themselves up in automatic succession in Seemeen and Naveed Arshad’s spacey Clifton office two days before Eidul Azha.

There was a good reason for me to be there. Seemeen and Naveed, husband and wife and experienced executive producers of the advertisement world, had been quietly at work on the launch of See Prime — a YouTube channel whose ‘programming’ would soon comprise a diverse collection of short-form content.

The pitch was too-good to pass up checking out: See Prime, initially launching on YouTube, where it would curate audience interest, is a new contender in the very much-in-vogue OTT (Over-The-Top) media game. The three-year plan is to release a talk show on Mondays, a cooking show on Wednesdays and premiere a film-quality, original short film on Fridays.

“Film-quality?” — another question added itself to the conversation.

Naveed Arshad had last produced Aksband, a punishing cliché-ridden horror film I had dragged a school friend to… so my initial skepticism could be excused (my friend has yet to forgive me for the experience).

The YouTube channel See Prime, open to both proven and new-blood filmmakers, is a playground of sorts for Pakistani talent with a burning desire to tell ‘cinematic’ stories

“At the time I made Aksband, I didn’t even know that you had to make a DCP [Digital Cinema Package — a file-format for projection] to play movies on cinema screens,” Naveed tells me.

Indeed he didn’t, but the experience was obviously the first lesson in preparation for a bigger picture.

With the exception of a handful of filmmakers — especially those from the advertisement business — no one has a grip on how to tackle long-form narratives, he tells me. See Prime, open to both proven and new-blood filmmakers, will be a playground of sorts for Pakistani talent with a burning desire to tell ‘cinematic’ stories.

Naveed and Seemeen will be executive producing the content — which is fitting, since it is their primary area of expertise. The two run See’Me Productions, an ad-film production company that bridges the gap between corporate clients, concept divisions at media agencies and directors. Last year, See’Me delivered over 100 ad films that filled the slots between news and entertainment programmes on television.

Impressive as the initiative sounds, one had to see the content to believe it — especially given the big talk this writer listens to most of the time, and the lacklustre and uneven state of digital content on both OTT’s and YouTube.

A drive over to the duo’s apartment on the SeaView stretch did assuage my apprehension.

“We didn’t make a great big house, instead we made this,” Seemeen tells me as we take a left from a disinfectant tunnel towards a hulking car garage painted black and gray. As foretold, it is literally a ‘garage set-up’ of a newfound business.

Big, glass doors slide open as we hop over stuffed sandbags that keep the rain out. Inside, a craftily designed set of The Gentlemen Show (hosted by Ayaz Samo and Yasir Aqeel, targeting adult males) stands at the back of the shed. Steel scaffoldings, painted black to suppress light, support the barely nine-feet-high corrugated metal roofing. A big tree-bark stands concealed behind a small concrete wall reinforcing the structure. Right next to it, a white board is littered with notes of upcoming productions. This writer notes six projects in different stages of completion.

Seemeen and I sit down briefly on a table that has copies of new scripts in development. It takes a minimum of six weeks to develop a screenplay, she says, and they’d rather not take chances and work out the kinks at the script stage.

Editing workstations are fitted in small wooden cubicles on opposite walls, where two editors trim away content for the launch of the channel. One visual effects artist composites fake smoke elements on to a smoke bomb as it crashes through a window. He has just finished replacing images on blank ultrasound monitors, in some shots of a pregnant woman. This is my introduction to See Prime’s debut short film Article 370, which made its debut on August 5.

As one can surmise from the title, Article 370 is a drama set in Jammu and Kashmir, starring Mariyam Nafees, Ghazala Kaifee, Abdul Muqeet and Arib, and directed by Ibrahim Baloch, a new filmmaker.

Several iterations of key poster art are rejected as I preview the visually impressive trailer. The short has that elusive cinematic quality that most Pakistani films lack. No expenses have been spared, I was told earlier at their office.

Actually, most of, if not all, the short films I preview, look expensive. Article 370 has been shot with an Arri Alexa. The Bridge, another short film on the edit, has been shot on a RED cinema camera. Other films in the line-up include Paying Guest and Positive, both in different stages of completion. The platform is experimenting with all genres, I’m told. Soon, productions would start ramping up on episodic series as well.

Frankly, no one spends this much on a start-up, I tell Naveed two days later on the phone.

Rather than spend money setting up a specific OTT platform, and then curating inferior content, it is better that they spend money on their content and maintain quality, he tells me. In any case, the platform, and the audiences’ interest, will take time to warm up, Naveed explains, so there’s no rush to launch an OTT.

There are a number of advantages of running a free-to-view digital platform. For starters, people love free content. Secondly, it frees producers from industry politics and bad business practices.

But isn’t it risky, business-wise, to just invest in a medium that has very few dependable revenue models, I enquire.

OTT platforms often charge a small fee that is deducted by telcos from mobile balances, or from Google Wallets linked to one’s bank account. Spending millions on a short film is not viable, if one is just dependent on YouTube monetisation. The only other alternative, I assume, would be to include sponsorships in productions — an unplanned tactic Seemeen and Naveed stumbled on to during their first production for See Prime (the short film, titled Ariel Unsung Heroes, was picked up by the detergent company).

“It’s quite premature for me to say who has the right approach. I’m not even sure if I have the right approach,” he replies.

“I want the world to listen to my voice — the voice of our art, of our country. We’re communicating through this platform. Business eventually finds a way into passion projects — especially when you prove your point, and your voice is heard.”

As I write this feature, word has already gotten out about See Prime — and the intention is heard loud and clear. I’m told this is a long-term commitment, and since this is a first step, they’ve got a long, challenging and interesting way to go.

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 9th, 2020