Q&A with India's Oak Tree Pictures' owner and producer, Bhavna Gupta Patel

KFTV talks to India's Oak Tree Pictures' owner and producer, Bhavna Gupta Patel, about the production house's international projects, the country's abundant filming appeal together with its diverse doubling potential.

Oak Tree Pictures is a Still and Digital Ad production house headquartered in New Delhi, India, founded 15 years ago.

Please explain the services you provide.

Over the years, Oak Tree Pictures has become a trusted global production company. We pride ourselves on our comprehensive, turnkey solutions for all production-related services -- from location scouting, visa applications, and bookings to local and international talent scouting, equipment sourcing, plus more.

We excel in fashion shoots, and also offer line production services for digital films, documentaries or other related shoots. With our experience, we guide, share, and support producers at every stage. Our ultimate goal is to create economical, safe and environmental friendly production, leaving our client with positive results.

What specialist equipment or skillset distinguish you from local competition?

Shooting in a vast and beautiful country like India can be both an exhilarating and daunting experience. With such local expertise therefore, we aim to educate the client about each and every small process right from the outset, providing them with transparency, candour as well as the comfort of shooting in India.


(Coca-Cola commercial)

What production experience does your team have?

Our team has accumulated production experience of over 18-20 years and has worked on everything from still shoots to digital films, documentaries, and major global campaigns. We have handled crew sizes from 15 to 150 on set. We are proud to have been a part of productions for some leading agencies, photographers, production companies and brands.


(ADIDAS: Photographer: Viviane Sassen; Fashion Stylist: Jay Massacret; HMU: Irena Ruben; Models: Jeenu Mahadevan & Malik Jalloh)

What is appealing about filming in India, and is there doubling potential in certain regions?

India is highly regarded for its vast and diverse locations. From great architectural monuments like traditional forts and palaces, to modern and contemporary hotels. There are niveous mountains and valleys in the north to beaches and seemingly endless coastlines on the other. From sand dunes to backwaters, India does have an enviable number of locations to choose from to cater to a variety of shoots.

Another benefit is the doubling potential – for example, Moroccan deserts can be found in Rajasthan and the snow-capped mountain peaks in Himachal can be depicted for Scotland, Norway or Switzerland!

India has become one of the most preferred locations to shoot global projects, given its huge pool of local talent – from art directors, technicians  and other experienced crew. It also offers a diverse range of production, post-production facilities and well-equipped studios. 


(Indian architecture)

What are some of the untapped filming locations in India that filmmakers should be aware of?

Cultural heritage sites like Barwara and Golconda in the north, Orchha in the middle and Hampi in South. Open white land of Gujarat and Back waters in south India are breath-taking. There are still some exclusive forts and palaces that are untouched so far in the Rajasthan area that are striking and majestic.

Please comment on India's incentives and rebate.

India aims to create an enabling environment for sustained growth of the media & entertainment sector. India has formulated detailed incentives for shooting of foreign films in India. Any foreign film production company coming to India for shooting films would be eligible for incentive up to 30% on the qualifying expenditure. 

For smaller shoots like stills, documentaries, and digital films, while there are no rebates offered, we as a company have shot for so many years at so many locations that we enjoy special discounts and economies of scale that we pass on to the clients.

What international projects have you worked on recently, and what's lined up for 2023?

Our last international project was for Berluti in 2019 pre-Covid, and more recently for an Indian designer Sabyasachi for his AW 2022 collection to be showcased and sold solely for the US market in his store in NYC. We look forward to many more such shoots in 2023. 

This article was written by Priyanca Rajput