Alt Balaji and ZEE5’s latest web show ‘His Storyy’ has created quite a buzz ever since its first look poster and teaser were released. However, it is the first look poster of His Storyy that has got the creators into trouble. Art director Jahan Bakshi, a prolific Twitter user, noticed glaring similarities between the just released poster for His Storyy and a poster he had helped create for 2016 indie film, LOEV.
Jahan Bakshi immediately brought the uncanny similarity between the two posters to the notice of Alt Balaji and ZEE5 via a tweet he posted this morning, which said, “Bro @altbalaji are you okay? I mean if you need someone to design posters I can help you, I promise it doesn’t cost that much.” He accompanied his tweet with pictures of the two posters – of LOEV and His Storyy. Upon looking at the two posters, even a layperson will realise that it is a clear case of plagiarism.
What he added further in his tweet is a damning indiction of Alt Balaji. He said, “This poster for LOEV was designed by @TalkPigeonCo and illustrated by Rohan Pore. We spent months on it. Investing solid time/money on a poster for an indie film is difficult. And yet, a studio which surely has the resources to commission original designs opts to steal it. Sad.”
Bakshi tagged the producer – director of LOEV, Sudhanshu Saria, in his tweet, who added his own two bits to the matter via a volley of tweets. He tweeted, “WHY IS THIS INDUSTRY LIKE THIS? Woke up to find that our painstakingly illustrated, original poster for @loevfilm has just been blatantly ripped off by the geniuses at @altbalaji @ZEE5Premium for their show #HisStoryy”
The thread continued, “Thirteen months of back and forth and so many drafts by the amazing minds at @TalkPigeonCo with oversight by @jahanbakshi and amazingly illustrated by artist @rohanpore just ripped off without any decency. Am glad they liked our poster; am glad they’re telling a queer story but why do this? What is the need? We made our poster with no funds to speak of. Why have a massive machinery like @altbalaji @ZEE5India if you can’t even come up with your own poster?”
Finally, Sudhanshu Saria tagged the cast of His Storyy, Satyadeep Misra and Mrinal Dutt, alerting them to the plagiarism. He tweeted, “Alerting my fellow artists @satyadeepmisra @MrinalDutt02 @Suparn — if you didn’t know, now you do. @ektarkapoor @TweetBaljit @ThisIsHowWeDing Let’s all do better.”
That wasn’t the end of Sudhanshu Saria’s rage. In his final tweet, the writer – producer – director of LOEV apologised to his creative team for being helpless to safeguard their work from getting stolen. He tweeted, “As a producer, I apologise to my collaborators and artists for not being able to protect their work better. Please feel RT and Share. This culture must end.”
LOEV was a 2016 indie film that starred Dhruv Ganesh and Shiv Panditt as gay lovers. His Storyy has a similar story arc. Satyadeep Misra and Mrinal Dutt play gay lovers in the series. Priyamani is a part of the cast. The show releases on April 25 on ZEE5 and ALTBalaji.
After the volley of tweets from Jahan Bakshi and Sudhanshu Saria, Alt Balaji pulled down the offending poster for some time, only to have it back on their social media within the hour.
The move did not go unnoticed by Bakshi, who tweeted, “Interesting. Following posts from @iamsuds and myself, @altbalaji took down the copied poster from Twitter and Instagram… Only to repost it after some time.
Not sure if this is supposed to be a display of arrogance & impunity or belief in ‘any publicity is good publicity’.”
Stay tuned to Binged.com for further updates on this story.