Entertainment
Karan Johar suggested I direct ‘My Birthday Song’, says Samir Soni
Mumbai, Jan 12 (IANS) Actor Samir Soni, who is making his debut as a director with “My Birthday Song”, says it was filmmaker Karan Johar who encouraged him to helm the film.
Asked if shifting gears from acting to direction is a natural progression, Samir told IANS: “I have always had an interest in suspense thriller and dark, intellectually stimulating stories. I wrote one of them and my friends said that it is a good story.
“Being a realistic man, with the interest to know the opinion of industry people, I narrated the story to Karan (Johar) and at the end of the story, the first reaction that came from him was, ‘Samir, direct the film’. Though he mentioned that Dharma Productions cannot produce the film because it is a dark film, he encouraged me throughout.”
However, he found his producer and actor of the film when he went to one of his friends, filmmaker Sanjay Suri.
Samir said: “Since Sanjay also said that I should direct the film, I asked him if he is interested to play the role in it. Surprisingly, he was not only ready to act in the film but also to produce it. Our sensibility matches so well and it is a very exciting project.”
While Samir found it quite a challenging and interesting process to write a thriller, according to him, “this is the genre where the story plays the real hero”.
“If the plot is good and engaging, the film will work. Yes, of course, it is very tough to crack the deal and perhaps that is why in our country, thrillers are so few and far between,” said the fanboy of filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Christopher Nolan.
Interestingly, most of the experimental content is coming up on the digital space. Why then did he choose the medium of cinema instead of a web-series?
Samir said: “You see, a film can be available on digital platforms, but a web series cannot be available in a theatre. Since the medium of digital entertainment is new, I am yet to understand the pulse of the audience there. I have seen some of the really bad Indian content on the web too.
“When it comes to the story of my film, it is already a risky genre, thriller. After working for 20 years in cinema, because I know the audience of this medium, I think it is better to put it out on a conventional medium of cinema rather than the web. If the film fails, at least I would be sure it is for the story and not for the medium,” said Samir.
The film “My Birthday Song”, also featuring Nora Fatehi, is releasing on January 19.
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
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“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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