MuscleBlaze - The Call

A newspaper on a table: poor Indian representation at the World Calisthenics Championship. A boy reads it and does not look away. On the wall behind him, a countdown in marker pen. Fifty days to go. Somewhere else a lifter stares at a whiteboard of missed workouts with his own name on it. A woman drops onto a mat. You can't run from it, says the voice.

The Call is a two-minute anthem film made for MuscleBlaze's eleventh year, written by Ogilvy Gurugram under the line Answer the Call, Unleash the Zidd, and directed by Atul Kattukaran for First December Films. It follows three people who hear something the rest of us ignore, and it ends on the whey protein that keeps them training. On the brand's channel the Hindi film has passed 10 million views and the English film nearly 3 million.

At a glance

• Brand: MuscleBlaze
• Agency: Ogilvy Gurugram
• Production house: First December Films
• Director: Atul Kattukaran
• Director of Photography: Anup Kattukaran
• Launch: 18 August 2023, Hindi and English films
• Running time: 2 min 11 sec
• Product: MuscleBlaze Biozyme Whey, 50 percent higher protein absorption
• Reach: 10.1 million views for the Hindi film and 2.9 million for the English film on the MuscleBlaze channel by September 2026

The brief

MuscleBlaze has built itself on one word since 2018: zidd, the stubbornness that keeps a person training when every sensible voice says stop. In 2023 the brand turned eleven, and it wanted a film that said what it stands for at full volume, to the people who already lift and to the people who keep meaning to.

Ritu Sharda, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy North, described the thought behind it: "In a world cluttered with fitness advice, one tends to get burdened and confused. But there is one thing that has the power to truly push your limits." Your own inner voice. The call.

The brief, then, was an anthem, and anthems are dangerous. The category is full of slow-motion sweat and drum hits. This one had to earn its emotion through people you believe, with the product arriving at the end as the thing that makes the training possible, not as the hero.

The idea: a voice that will not leave you alone

The call is the film's only narrator, and it speaks as if it were a person following the three protagonists around. The film cuts between them as the voice describes what the call does to a life.

• An overture in black and white, framed like old film: a gym, two men sizing each other up, a man throwing his arms wide, a figure bent double under a spotlight. You can't run from it.
• The calisthenics boy. The newspaper headline about India's poor showing at the world championship, his face, and the countdown on his wall. Once the call is answered, it rules your life.
• Bars in a floodlit field at dawn. He hangs, swings, fails, hangs again.
• The lifter. A board of names and missed workouts, his own name with a four beside it. Even when you push it away, the call returns stronger, louder.
• The woman. Battle ropes, push-ups, a staircase at night. There is no room for distraction.
• The lifter under the bar, a sprint on wet grass, a fall onto the mat. When you fall, the call picks you up.
• Then colour and light through gym windows: a handstand, a deadlift, a shake from a black shaker bottle. The call comes from within, and it is calling out to you, to the better version of yourself.
• The boy again, in a blue tracksuit, in a hall hung with national flags, arms raised. He made it to the championship.
• Product: Biozyme Whey, 50 percent higher protein absorption, recover faster, never miss a workout, never give up. Answer the Call, Unleash the Zidd, and the eleven years mark.

The three stories are never explained. There is no coach, no rival, no dialogue. The film trusts a newspaper, a whiteboard and a staircase to tell you what each person is fighting, and lets the voice do the rest.

The film is two minutes of people being nagged by themselves, and it makes that sound like the best thing that could happen to you.

Casting three people you believe

Sumit and Bhavna cast Aman Bisht, Aditi Gupta and Sidhart Tyagi, and the film depends on the fact that none of them look like fitness models. The calisthenics boy is thin and young and looks at the newspaper like it is about him. The lifter is heavy through the shoulders and tired. The woman trains alone at night. The bodies change over the two minutes, but the faces are what you watch.

The shoot

Anup Kattukaran shot it with a gimbal operator and a full lighting unit, in gyms, on a field with outdoor bars, on a staircase and in a hall dressed with flags. The look is deliberately split. The first half is desaturated and hard, black-and-white inserts in a rounded film-frame border, low light and single sources. The second half opens up: sun through tall windows, warm skin, colour. That shift is the arc of the film. The voice does not change; the light does.

Costume stylist Edward Lalrempuia dressed the three so that each reads at a glance, tracksuit, vest and black training gear, and art director Sharath built the details the story hangs on: the newspaper, the countdown, the missed-workouts board.

Post and sound

Priyank Prem Kumar cut it, with Rohit Padwal at After Studios on the online and Navin Shetty at Nube Studio on the grade that carries the dark-to-light arc. Sandeep Patil composed the score at The Sandbox and Joseph George produced and mixed the music, and the film is built on it: a low pulse under the black-and-white overture that keeps gathering until the deadlift and the flags. Two voice artists carry the call, Viraj Adhav in Hindi and Roshmin Mehandru in English, so each language version has its own narrator rather than a dub.

Where it sat

• 18 August 2023: Hindi and English films go live on the MuscleBlaze channel, the Hindi film dedicated to the brand's eleven years and its ziddis. First December Films publishes the director's cut the same day.
• 5 September 2023: Launch coverage in afaqs and Best Media Info names Ogilvy Gurugram, Ritu Sharda's team, and First December Films with Atul Kattukaran and Ganesh Pareek.

By September 2026 the Hindi film had 10.1 million views and the English film 2.9 million on the brand's channel. This was First December Films' second MuscleBlaze film with Atul Kattukaran directing; the first ran in 2019.

What the film proves

This is the reference to reach for when a brief needs any of the following:

• a brand anthem that earns its emotion through characters rather than montage
• a voice-over film where the narration is a character, not a caption
• three interwoven stories told without a line of dialogue
• a visual arc built from grade and light, dark to bright, over two minutes
• a supplement or fitness product introduced at the end without breaking the film
• a film delivered in two languages with native voice performances

See more of our work, the director's reel and credits, or send us a script and a date.

Credits

• Client: MuscleBlaze
• Agency: Ogilvy Gurugram
• Production house: First December Films
• Director: Atul Kattukaran
• Executive Producer: Ganesh Pareek
• Senior Producer: Imran Patel
• Producer: Ankit Singh
• Director of Photography: Anup Kattukaran
• Cast: Aman Bisht, Aditi Gupta, Sidhart Tyagi
• Offline Editor: Priyank Prem Kumar
• Grade: Navin Shetty, Nube Studio
• Online: Rohit Padwal, After Studios
• Music: Sandeep Patil
• Music production and mix: Joseph George
• Voice: Viraj Adhav (Hindi), Roshmin Mehandru (English)