International collaboration brings higher profits: Shamir

Shamir Tandon says working with international artists helps open up the world market and brings more buyers.

Mumbai: Shamir Tandon, who was behind ‘Heartbeat’, a collaboration between Indian singer Sunidhi Chauhan and Spanish pop star Enrique Iglesias, says working with international artists helps open up the world market and brings more buyers.

"When we work with international artists our market is not restricted to India and Indian diaspora. It opens up to the world market, so I don`t end up selling my music just in India. We sell it across the world and it brings more buyers," Tandon, who has composed music for the much-talked about film ‘Ragini MMS’, told reporters. "Ultimately it`s an English song with a lot of English lyrics and few Hindi words and that works in the West. The revenues just don`t come from India alone. It also comes from the western audiences and it is sold at a higher price there. As it is sold in dollars, so the recovery is much better," added the composer of films like ‘Page 3’, ‘Corporate’ and ‘Jail’. "We also see if we can get some brands and sponsors on board so that we can lessen the cost. Even if they don`t make huge profits, we break even with a slight margin," he said. Tandon, an ex-managing director of Virgin EMI, was the source behind the song ‘Heartbeat’, a collaboration between Indian singer Sunidhi Chauhan and Spanish pop star Enrique Iglesias. "I wanted to get two youth icons together, so I thought of Enrique. When it came to chose from Indian singers, normally I would have got Lataji and Ashaji to sing because I`m very close to them and have worked with them in the past, but when at one hand you have a youth icon, you can`t have an elderly senior artist singing with him. So I thought the best choice would be Sunidhi," said Tandon. "Mark Taylor is the song writer and Enrique, I and Mark came up with the song where we also added Indian folk elements," he added. This is not Shamir`s first International collaboration. He spearheaded many such projects including boy band Blue and singer Shaan`s collaboration for the song ‘One Love’, which was used in the film ‘Rakht’; ‘Burre burre’ from the film ‘Bluffmaster’ which was sung by Iranian-Swedish singer Arash Labaf; cricketer Bret Lee and Asha Bhonsle in the album ‘Asha And Friends’; French remixer-producer Bob Sinclair and Kunal Ganjawala for the song ‘World hold on’ for ‘Mission Istanbul’. Jamming with international artists is not a cake walk, says Tandon. "It is difficult because you are trying to make a mark on a global platform. But it`s also easier because people in the West now do wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to India and people also understand that we are trying to bring in legitimacy. When they know that its not stealing and that we want a proper collaboration, they are happy to do it," said the composer. As far as his film composing projects are concerned, Tandon has always been choosy. "I have been selective because I started my career with Madhur Bhandarkar and I did extremely realistic films for him. So since I`ve composed for some nice intelligent cinema, I feel that I should do projects that have some meaning rather than going down the line," he said. "Reciprocally also I think a lot of filmmakers think of me as someone who does selective work and that`s why they don`t come to me with masala movies, which I am open to do as long as they come from good production houses and have sensibilities that match with mine," he added. IANS