City 1016 celebrates 13 years of entertaining you this May. Being the UAE’s number 1 Bollywood radio station we wanted to take our listeners on a unique journey through Bollywood.The idea of a ‘Mime Through Time’ hadn’t been used for a walk through Bollywood over the years and it was the perfect tribute to Indian Cinema.
The mashup was created by our production mavericks, Sujit Narayan and Govind Varrier and it felt like homecoming for any Bollywood fan. But before we got to the perfect mashup, we had to cull through the massive volume of popular Bollywood number to select a few that were iconic for each generation. From the swinging sixties to the disco seventies, from the masala 90’s to the mellifluous new millennium – 2000, until the era we’re in right now that breaks all boundaries of sound, language and embraces world sounds – we completed the mammoth task of song selection and it was just perfect!
Shooting the video brought the entire City 1016 family together. From our programming team – with all the presenters, to our music manager – Gopika Panchmatia, our station producer – Alokesh Kalgutkar, our sales team and our marketing team – we spent 3 days going crazy together. The shoot involved dancing, miming and driving a car whilst in full costume and make up from different Bollywood eras. Who knew that our Sales Executives – Sandeep Ailani and Rohith Damodar had such a filmy streak? Or that Vivek Sethia and Reema Arif from our marketing team – who we see strategising in conference rooms could dance and emote so well?!
While Meghana choreographed every dance move, the video was shot and edited brilliantly by Govind Varrier, our production genius. The video became a rage first in the ARN office, with colleagues of all nationalities downloading and sharing it!
The fun we had is evident on screen. In a matter of a few hours the City 1016 Mime Through Time was trending on sites such as Scoopwoop and Vagabond, being hailed as the best Bollywood mashup in recent times. The costumes, the dance moves, the mannerisms, the pulse of each time and its flavour make it truly the ultimate Bollywood tribute from City 1016.