Music composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have opted out of the ambitious big budget project Saaho that has Baahubali star Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead.
They announced the news on 27 May stating that they were uncomfortable with the idea of having more composers working on the film.
The debate around multi-music composers team is prevalent not just in Bollywood but in other regional film industries as well.
A tweet by the National Film Awardee trio said on their official handle: “We wish to inform all our fans that Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have opted out of composing the music for ‘Saaho’. Here’s wishing #Prabhas #Sujeetsign #Vamsi #Pramod #Shyam all the luck for the film.”
On what made them take the decision, Shankar Mahadevan, main vocalist of the trio, told IANS over phone: “The music company wanted to add a few songs from external composers. We are not very comfortable with that. Normally, we prefer to remain the sole composers of the film. That’s why we decided to opt out.”
Mahadevan added that they had not composed much for the Sujeeth’s directorial. ” Not much. Just creatively… we were jamming on some ideas. Nowadays you see multi-composers happening on many of the films. They checked if it’s okay with us. We said ‘no’.”
Saaho is being produced under the banner, UV Creations production.The film will be presented by T-Series.
UV creations responded to the trio’s tweet on Twitter stating, ” Thank you @ShankarEhsanLoy for all the support.. Means a lot.One of the nicest people to work with. Looking forward to working with you all soon. #Saaho”
We wish to inform all our fans that Shankar Ehsaan Loy have opted out of composing the music for #Saaho here’s wishing #Prabhas @Sujeetsign #Vamsi #Pramod #Shyam all the luck for the film 🙂
— Shankar Ehsaan Loy (@ShankarEhsanLoy) May 27, 2019
Thank you @ShankarEhsanLoy for all the support.. Means a lot.
One of the nicest people to work with. Looking forward to working with you all soon.#Saaho— UV Creations (@UV_Creations) May 28, 2019
Mahadevan clarified that the his team was not comfortable doing the multi-composer-for-a-film-thing because they felt that as a single composer one can retain and contribute to the identity of the film.
“There’s got to be a creative thread that joins all the songs. We preferably also do the background score, but even if that’s not there, at least the songs…” he added.
In all of their earlier projects the trio, has created some of the most memorable song sequences in Bollywood, has worked alone.
Mahadevan also said: “If you see all our films, like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Taare Zameen Par and Kal Ho Naa Ho, we have done music as one set of composers. We don’t have anything against having multi-composers. But we are not comfortable doing that.”
Some of the other music composers who prefer to do their music production by themselves include AR Rahman, Vishal-Shekhar, Pritam and Amit Trivedi.