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Happy Days (2007 film)

Happy Days (హాపీ దెస్) (Dubbed into Malayalam with the same title) is a 2007 film directed by Sekhar Kammula starring several new faces such as Tamanna,Varun Sandesh, Raahul, Nikhil, Vamsee Krishna, Gayatri Rao, Monali Chowdhary and Sonia. The music of this film is by a relative newcomer, Mickey J Meyer, who also composed music for the movie Notebook. Editing is by Marthand K. Venkatesh with Vijay C Kumar doing the cinematography. The film had huge box-office collections in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

Synopsis

Just as with Anand and Godavari Kammula tells a fresh, simple tale in Happy Days. In keeping with his past work, this movie is strong, contemporary, and a family film. Happy Days follows the college life of four boys and four girls as they experience love, friendship, responsibility, etc. It was one of the biggest hits of the year

Cast

Varun Sandesh ... Chandu (Chandrasekhar)
Tamanna Bhatia ... Madhu
Nikhil Siddharth... Rajesh
Raahul ... Tyson (Arjun)
Vamsee Krishna... Shankar
Gayatri Rao ... Appu (Aparna)
Monali Chowdhary ... Sangeetha
Sonia ... Shravs (Shravanthi)

Nikhil Siddharth will be soon returning with his solo film in 2008.

Production

Casting

Sekhar Kammula ran a talent search at Big FM and idlebrain.com and managed to select 7 out of 8 lead actors. They had to cast Tamanna as he did not get another suitable actress through the talent search. Actors were chosen to suit the characters but not based on their dancing or dialogue delivery skills. For the first time in the film history , the main lead of a movie was selected via internet without any direct audition. Varun Sandesh, who played the Chandu character, did not meet anyone of the Happy Days production team. He sent his photographs in email responding to idlebrain.com ad and then sent the video clipping of the scenes he was asked to act along with a song through Google Video and was confirmed for the lead role.

Location

Parts of the movie were shot in Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology (MGIT) college of Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT). The management of CBIT has long stopped giving permission for shooting films on site. Sekhar Kammula is an alumnus of CBIT and he found it to be a suitable location for 'Happy Days'. He had to hold a special screening of Anand to BN Reddy (the chairman of CBIT) and board members to convince them for giving the permission for an on-site shoot. Apparently, after watching Anand, the board has passed a resolution to give permission to shoot the film.

Cost Cutting Measures

Sekhar Kammula cut costs of producing the film though various methods. By casting all new comers, he cut the remunerations to a reasonable level. Most of the shooting takes place in the college for 50 days and by choosing a permanent set up like CBIT he saved over Rs 15 lakhs. By partnering with Pantaloon Group, he saved another Rs 10 lakhs in the costumes budget. He put the entire cast and crew of Happy Days in Treasure Island, which is just a few minutes away drive from CBIT.

Release

Happy Days was released on September 28, 2007 in the US and October 2, 2007 in India. It was released with 11 prints overseas on September 28, 2007. In addition, it was dubbed in Malayalam and released in 24 centres across Kerala.