Onur Güvenatam, who’s known as “the man who enters every family’s house” thanks to the popular and successful TV series he produced such as İstanbullu Gelin, Atiye, and Kırmızı Oda, says that before he begins a project, he needs to feel convinced that it’ll benefit the audience. We asked him about the secrets of being a producer in Turkey and his success.
There are many successful projects bearing your signature. To what do you owe this? What’s your secret? Regarding our projects, our primary motivation is to heal people. We work towards that goal so it’s crucial for us to be convinced that what we do will be good for people or have some sort
of benefit for them. Happily, we can communicate this sensitivity to the audience, which really is the essence of our success. Another important point is that we also love working and have accepted “efficient operation” as the pillar of our approach. We strive to devise the proper strategy and create values accordingly. We’re motivated to become more successful because we want to do more diverse projects. Usually, the more variety you have, the harder it is to focus, to dedicate yourself to your work. Fortunately, we’re experiencing the benefits of being able to focus and dedicating our energy to creating good content.
We know you as the “the man who enters every family’s house” What kind of responsibilities do you think this puts on your shoulders?
I believe that OGM Pictures has earned itself a serious place thanks to its projects developed for both TV and digital platforms. Of course, this brings along certain responsibilities; in fact, we’ve adopted a responsible attitude since the beginning of this journey. When creating any kind of content, we always approach it meticulously. We will continue to maintain this precocity and to go along with projects that we believe in. We aim at retaining this position with new content that focuses on good stories and different experiences. As I mentioned before, our top priority is to produce content which will do good for the audience. This is our main responsibility. We don’t take action unless we’re convinced that our project will benefit the audience in some way.
Is predicting the expectations of the audience an instinctual process, or is it more formulaic? In this environment, the audience has an almost infinite number of alternatives in terms of content. The more varied the content has become, the more they started consuming and demanding different content. Of course, there are characteristic dynamics at play when it comes to social media, digital platforms, and traditional media, and yes, we can define them as formulas because each content has its own consumer and target audience. However, there’s also an instinctual aspect to determining the project’s influence on the viewers.
You’ve brought a number of stories by Gülseren Budayıcıoğlu to life. How did you get to know her and her stories? Before going to college in London, I was a patient of Mrs. Budayıcıoğlu in Ankara. So, I’m one of the clients in that therapist’s room in the series Kırmızı Oda. Sitting in that chair has become a painful yet amazing process of exploration for me. The more you understand yourself, the more you understand others. When I reached a certain level of awareness, I believed in the importance of expanding it to the masses. I crossed paths with her when we were working on İstanbullu Gelin, which I believe to be one of the most honourable productions on television. It was hard to convince her, but I succeeded.
After the success of the first series, we saw that we had a long road ahead of us. She also wants to transfer her accumulation of experiences and to create awareness in people. I’m so happy that we’ve touched the lives of many people together.
What kind of parallels would you draw between the stories you tell us and the family structure and wellbeing in our society? Our productions are based on real stories and true events. We present the audience with ordinary stories which include characters that are like us in one aspect or another. The fact that the stories on the screen reflect reality says a lot about how much we all need to talk about what we feel and think. That’s why our projects resonate with people, and we build a different kind of bond. I truly believe that we’re doing good for people.
Do you think that popularity on social media is reflected on the screen time and ratings? If your content isn’t good, it wouldn’t help even if you executed a communication strategy on social media, outdoors, on TV, on websites, or wherever. Of course, popularity is an important element in promoting the content, but it’s never exclusive.
FOTOĞRAF / PHOTOGRAPHY: ERGİN TURUNÇ GÖKHAN AVCIOĞLU VE ÇIRAĞAN PALACE KEMPINSKI'YE TEŞEKKÜRLERİMİZLE.