Badal Jain and Raja Jain have built a business around

By Ashna Ambre

What do Laxmi Niwas Mittal, Hema Malini, KP Singh, Prithvi Jindal, and Sant Singh Chatwal have in common? They were in the news for the lavish weddings of their offsprings. They also preferred to hire the services of the company Vision News Pvt Ltd., which is run by the Jain brothers, Badal and Raja. The brothers, who are also directors at the firm, provide a customized service exclusively for weddings.

Hailing from the Pink City, Jaipur, the duo inherited the business from their father who started the company as a private news agency in 1985 to cover news features and capsules in Rajasthan for most news channels of that time.

Early start
“We began understanding the business pretty early. We assisted our father and his team while still in school and learnt the intricate details of the business,” recalls Badal Jain. The brothers remark that they never knew the small tasks they were undertaking would one day help them build a career. “We enjoyed shooting plays and making short movies and documentaries,” says Raja.

In 1995, Jain came to Delhi to pursue higher studies, but ended up working on a project that NDTV had outsourced to Vision News instead. Meanwhile, Raja continued to assist his father in Jaipur until 1998, when the entire family and business relocated to Delhi.

The introduction of small, compact cameras that needed no particular skill sets for operating and cost one-tenth of the cameras Vision News possessed, gave news channels a viable cost-cutting option. But this option was unviable for Vision News since it would have meant disposing of the existing expensive equipment which the venture already had. “We did not want to make this huge fresh investment. So we decided to diversify in 2001,” says Jain.

Constraint-led opportunity
“The marriage industry, as we know it today, was taking baby steps in 1995. Wedding planning was a niche concept, and suppliers catering to the business were fragmented,” says Mehar Sarid, a wedding industry expert. In 2001, the brothers started working as freelance videographers for small production houses in Delhi where they shot corporate films and documentaries. A year later, they approached Sarid for an assignment; but this was not a regular assignment. An entire wedding had to be filmed like a movie, using high definition cameras that were seldom used for events. After the filming, the content had to be edited-synchronizing the ambience, lighting and colors.

“In 2002, there was no concept of wedding filmmaking. It was just a photographer who clicked numerous pictures of the bride, groom and their family in pre-defined poses. There was no visual storytelling,” says Raja. Though they had never filmed weddings, the brothers’ experience in making short movies and documentaries came in handy. Sarid says the brothers scored by entering the then nascent industry at the right time which gave them a first-mover advantage. The industry was flooded with numerous wedding service providers like card designers, florists and trousseau packers.

A new film
‘Badal-Raja’ is now a well-known name in wedding photography and cinematography. The duo got on top by doing things differently. They were hands-on with everything-be it talking to clients, shooting films with their team and editing the final product.

The approach to every wedding, say the Jain brothers, is akin to that by a film director. With Indian weddings aping Bollywood films, the brothers try and create an environment that encourages the participants at the wedding to emote, which is then captured on film. “We film reactions, emotions and a series of events to create a story without too much interference and instructions. We like to remain unobtrusive,” says Jain.

The brothers supervise and carry out tasks with their team when on individual assignments. But if both are doing an event together, then Jain takes charge of videography and Raja handles photography. Currently, the duo films about 35 weddings in a year which can vary vastly in both scale and geography. Besides creating wedding films and rendering them on the Blu-ray format, the Jain brothers offer coffee table books with stills of candid moments from the wedding. They say that these books are exclusively printed in Italy and then imported. Given their approach and audience, they only use sophisticated equipment and cinema cameras for their work. Jain says they initially charged about Rs. 3,000 a day. Today, they charge upwards of Rs. 1.5 lakh per day for a single wedding event. Last year, the duo brought in a turnover of Rs. 2.5 crore and a 25 percent profit. Raja says they redirect 4 percent of their turnover towards research and development to keep pace with changing technology in cinematography.

Immense scope
The brothers say, having spent their childhood in a small city where they carried out tasks themselves without any help, they have the confidence of pulling off big jobs. “I am not the most educated person. But my brother and I are passionate about our work,” says Jain. As of now, their clientele comprises of the high income class, a segment which is growing and willing to spend on weddings. “We are a part of the happiest moments in the life of a family, which makes this a very happy profession” adds Raja.

“The wedding industry has immense scope for growth, with the number of nouveau riche in India on the rise. The industry has been getting an international flavour since the last two years, with leading fashion, furniture and gift designers from across the world investing in it,” says Sarid.

Jain says though filming weddings will remain a vital part of their career, in the future they would also like to foray into film-making-aimed at a limited audience for art films and exclusively for red carpet events.

© Entrepreneur India April 2013
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