Levi’s brand advertisement featuring Deepika Padukone has been accused of plagiarism. Director Sooni Taraporewala claimed that the dance studio set used in the ad featuring the actress is the copy the one designed for the Netflix film Yeh Ballet. She stated that the set was plagiarised to every tiny detail, and has been passed off as their own creative work. She slammed the makers and production designer of the ad for copying the studio set-up.
Sooni Taraporevala shared pictures for easy comparison of the studio shown in both- the ad, as well as Yeh Ballet. She wrote, “A couple of days ago @cindy_jourdain brought this @levis_in ad to my attention. I was shocked to see our Yeh Ballet dance studio set in this ad, because it was conceptualised & created out of a derelict space by Shailaja Sharma @shalzoid (our PD) from scratch and dismantled after our shoot. Basically @nadiaeye (the director of this ad) saw Yeh Ballet and decided to plagiarise our set down to the very last detail (swipe for screenshot).”
She further questioned, “Would Levi’s and the director ever think of doing that in the west without permission / acknowledgment, and passing it off as their own creative work? This is not homage this is intellectual theft! It’s SO unfair to our wonderful production designer @shalzoid to have her work ripped off like that.”
Sooni Taraporevala wrote that the copycat culture needs to be called out. “You would think a foreign production company and director would know better. Are you so creatively bankrupt? What were you thinking? @levis_in @nadiaeye @offroadfilms @rupinsuchak @newland.tv,” she wrote.
One of the pictures shared by her includes a screenshot of a comment by the ad’s production designer, Rupin Suchak, in which he admitted that they recreated the set since that is what the director wanted. “That’s exactly like the studio in the film Yeh Ballet, did you guys shoot there?” asked a social media user. Rupin Suchak replied, “Yes we did 🙂 in fact that’s what our director wanted so we had to recreate that.”
