Bollywood’s poster girl!

Simrit Brar is responsible for enticing an audience to a film — or not

You could call her a ‘poster girl’ but don’t expect to find her pinned up all over the place.

For Simrit Brar, it’s her work that’s usually framed and put up on walls. A designer of promotional campaigns that include posters for films, Simrit currently works for a design firm in New York.

Her educational credentials are impeccable. Film and Television Institute of India, National Institute of Design and Parsons New School of Design, New York. And if that doesn’t impress you, how about this: She’s designed posters for over 35 Bollywood films that include ‘Lagaan’, ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ and ‘Kaante’.

“For me, it’s always been the film and the vision of the director that is important. Never the star. So I concentrate on what I like to project to the audience,” says former Miss India Manpreet Brar’s sister.

Of her experience in working on ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ she says, “It was a very challenging brief to fill. We had to make posters that looked urban and yet not college-like because the film was really about these friends and their lives as grown ups.”

Of the current crop, Simrit feels film promotion has moved on. “I see a lot of good stuff now but I think we could still do a lot more in terms of promoting a film well. Of the ones I have seen now, I really like both the ‘Munnabhai’ posters,” she says.

Simrit is objectively critical about promotions in Bollywood today. “In Hollywood, the promotion process begins even before the film is shot. And the budgets are so much bigger. I believe Indian producers are not looking at film promotion in a scientific way yet,” she says citing the example of Mel Gibson’s ‘Apocalypto’, whose trailers were shown on The History Channel. “It’s such a clever way to promote a movie on a channel like that and targetting the right audience.”

m_sandhya@dnaindia.net