Action! 15 hours on a film set

The smallest details make a film come alive. DH journalist Pranati A S watches a film being shot in Mysuru and captures the chaos behind the craft

Action director Ravi Varma isn’t happy. “Cut!” he says, as he springs out of his chair and walks towards the actor. “You don’t have to use much force, but your kick must be convincing,” he says, telling the actor to extend his leg longer.

‘Mango Pachcha’, a Kannada crime drama now in the making, is directed by Viveka and features newcomer Sanchith Sanjeev as the hero. The shoot is underway at a pre-school on the outskirts of Mysuru. It has a courtyard, and has been transformed into the villain’s den.

Sanchith Sanjeev

It is 10 pm, and the anticipation is high as Varma, the famous action director, is choreographing a fight. Yet in different corners of the set, the cast and crew are following the IPL final on their phones.

A rope is tied to the fighter taking the hero’s kick. As the kick lands, an AD (assistant director) pulls up the rope to dramatise the impact. An air blower lends a light breeze, while a hose pump generates stronger gusts. Many things go into making the fight look real. It has taken the crew nearly six hours to shoot just 30 seconds of the footage.

In the 15 hours I spend on the sets, the team manages to get about four minutes of footage. The work is repetitive. The cast mouths the same dialogues over and over again, and it is shot from multiple angles. By the time the cast and crew wrap up a scene, I know the dialogues by heart!

The scenes range from a confrontation to a frame of a song montage, a phone call, a brief run-up to the climax, and 30 seconds of the climax fight.

Behind the scenes

With about 125 members in the crew across 10 departments, a film set is easily one of the most chaotic places. Caterers buzz around with tea and coffee, carpentry assistants carry drills and saws, and a senior technician occasionally yells at an understudy. But the moment the director says “roll camera” and the director of photography (DoP) says “rolling”, a silence pervades the sets. Whisper, and you may get a death stare — I get one from the action director.

Despite the chaos, it is remarkable how many moving parts stay in sync. As soon as the director approves a shot, everyone moves swiftly to prepare for the next one, like actors in a well-rehearsed play preparing for the next act. The camera team shifts its equipment, and the art department gets busy in a fresh corner. What looks like a dull warehouse is soon transformed into a beautiful living room, complete with a TV, couch, and wall art. Meanwhile, the actors get touch-ups and are briefed on the next shot by ADs holding the day’s script in their hands.

Improvised lines

Although screenwriters and directors spend months on the script, a lot is improvised on set. Dialogues that look good on paper may not sound right when delivered aloud — they can miss the emotion or come across as preachy. Viveka, the director, quickly revises lines in a key confrontation scene. “When the dialogue runs longer than necessary, it ruins the mood,” he explains.

A shot of the villain casually eating a mango as he speaks to a guest is filmed and approved. Minutes later, the director wants a change: the villain should cut the mango first, and then eat it while speaking. “Small actions add tempo to a scene and make it feel more natural,” he says.

Too much, too little

A home can reflect a character’s personality, and that day, a flower vase becomes a lesson. As the art department sets up the villain’s house, the director shouts, “Why is it empty? Put some flowers in it.”

“We often keep empty vases at home,” I muse. “My villain wouldn’t keep an empty vase,” Viveka says. This villain is showy — he loves wearing Ray-Ban glasses and a gold chain. He is also involved in politics and receives many visitors. “It is too modern and egalitarian for him to keep an empty vase. The film is set in early 2000s Mysuru, a tier-2 city. In such cities, a vase isn’t decoration enough; a vase with flowers is,” he says.

While the flowers arrive in no time, setting up a shop where “500 people smoke and drink tea every day” takes more effort. Vishwas Kashyap, the art director, sources tea strainers, cups, and glasses from a real stall. I gather the stall owner, who knows Viveka, has parted with his stuff for free, out of “love and affection”.

To Viveka, Kashyap’s work echoes the detailing he had achieved in Rathnakar’s house in the 2021 comedy drama ‘Rathnan Prapancha’. “It felt like somebody lived there for long, and ate and slept there,” he says. Similarly, in Kanu Behl’s 2014 crime drama ‘Titli’, the walls of homes were painted layer upon layer to reflect typical middle-class homes.

Another discussion on authenticity comes up. When the makeup artist paints a bruise on Sanchith’s cheekbone, the actor says, “When the cheekbone is punched, the wound is generally more severe.” After inspecting it, the director says, “No, no, I don’t want Ibrahim (one of the hero’s opponents) to get so much importance. This will do.”

Amid conversations and disagreements across departments, the film gradually takes shape, and the crew members begin to look like characters themselves, each playing a role in shaping the narrative.

LED lights out

By evening, blue lights bathe the outdoors, while red lights light up the villain’s house. The final output can differ from the colours used on the sets, as they are often modified during post-production. The DoP keeps this in mind while designing the lighting on the sets. With DI (Digital Intermediate) technology, a film’s entire look can be transformed. DI involves colour correction.

Much of the film is being shot on the streets, says DoP Shekar Chandra. “Since it is set in the early 2000s, when sodium street lights were common, we used them to recreate that feel,” he explains.

“Today, street lights are all LED. We had to switch them off and use our own sodium lights,” he continues.

Two cameras are used for the fight sequence I watch — Alexa Arri, and Phantom Flex 4K. Multiple cameras are used to maintain continuity in action scenes, especially since many fighters are involved and their placements can change when shots are repeated. However, shooting with two cameras brings other challenges, as each camera captures the lighting differently.

Aesthetics is important in storytelling, but today’s commercial films focus more on elevating the character than on the nuances. As a result, aesthetic shots are now mostly relegated to indie films.

Easy continuity 

The editor or an assistant sits in on the sets, creating a rough cut to assess how a scene is shaping up. One key benefit of online editing is that if a line, expression, or body language doesn’t work, it can be immediately reshot. “We don’t usually shoot in order — if shots 1 and 16 are from the same angle, we shoot them at one go. Matching shots becomes easier with online editing,” says Shekar Chandra. Back in the day, edit logs were maintained manually, and maintaining continuity used to be a big challenge.

What is sugar glass?

The villain’s house is set up with props like a gramophone, wooden trunks and paintings, not to speak of flower vases. Like most production designers, Kashyap has his own inventory of props. He rents what he doesn’t have. “Bengaluru is expensive for an art director. Prop rents are higher than in Mumbai and Chennai,” he says.

Earlier in the day, the action director has checked the props and rubber mats for the fight to be shot later that night. The carpenters have created furniture that breaks easily. The furniture used for fights is made from scissor wood, also known as matchstick wood. It grows only in and around Chennai, and is locally called panjumaram. “Regular carpenters can’t make this kind of furniture. It requires special skills,” says Kashyap. To demonstrate how easily it breaks, he takes a piece between his hands and snaps it. I give it a try. It isn’t so brittle in my hands!

Sugar glass is used to create props like tumblers and beer bottles. It is made from granulated sugar, water, and corn syrup. Window panes, on the other hand, are made from the same material as regular glass. But while conventional glass is cooled gradually, this glass is cooled instantly with ice. “It makes the glass shatter without sharp edges, so it doesn’t cause injury,” explains Kashyap.

Weapons like swords, knives, and daggers are made of rubber. Since rubber is flexible, a rigid material is placed inside to keep the props from wobbling. Kashyap speaks about another material called PUF (polyurethane foam). It is commonly used in refrigerators. When mixed with a hardener, it can be moulded into any shape and solidifies instantly. It doesn’t hurt when someone is hit with it.

“There is a lot of chemistry involved in action props, and we have to make them work with physics,” he says. Fake bricks, for example, are made from thermocol blocks but filled with stones to add weight.

Fights are among the most challenging situations for the art department, he says. “We use rubber mats that match the colour of the floor,” he says. That day, jigsaw interlocking mats are painted red to blend with the red-oxide flooring of the villain’s house.

Action behind action

Watching action director Varma is the highlight of my visit to the sets. In 2016, when he directed Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Raees’ and performed a chase-and-fight scene with him, the actor posted on X, “Action Director Ravi sir & Cinematography team of Mohanan sir is making me fly. Filter…” (sic). The tweet went viral, especially among Kannada audiences, who are fans of Varma’s work.

Once an action director steps in, he is in control of the sets. His team of stunt professionals and an online editor accompany him. According to the director’s briefing, the sequence is choreographed, directed and edited by the action director’s team. Varma has about 12 team members on duty for this scene.

Sanchith, debuting as hero, has received training at Varma’s studio in Bengaluru’s Girinagar for a month. “It began with learning basic mixed martial arts (MMA). More than anything, it was important to learn how to fight for the camera — how to miss the opponent since you obviously can’t hit him — and to maintain the expression of aggression while doing it,” he says. He does stretches before a shot to avoid injuries.

The stunt team is trained extensively. “A fighter must know basic gymnastics if he wants to join a fight team. We train the team with senior fight masters for about three months before they are ready to go. They learn how much force to use while hitting, and how to avoid injuries,” Varma says.

The preparation for an action sequence depends on its scale. Varma, who has directed an elaborate action scene for the upcoming ‘Lahore 1947’, says it involved a 10-day shoot, preceded by about a week of rehearsals with the actors.

The cast and crew rehearsed in detail — from breaking the props to timing the blasts and rope pulls. “Only, the camera wasn’t rolling,” Varma says. How many days the actors rehearse depends on the budget — the producers have to get the actors’ dates even for the days they are just rehearsing. “Yash would rehearse for 20 days,” he says. Varma has directed Yash in films like ‘Googly’, ‘Gajakesari’, and ‘Mr and Mrs Ramachari’.

All of this is preceded by 10-15 days of groundwork — from location scouting to making sure the props break convincingly. A concern is to make action feel realistic, not over-the-top.

Darshan’s story

Actors usually hesitate to kick or hit with force, I learn. Varma has an interesting story about actor Darshan, now a murder accused facing trial. “He would never hit anyone while shooting. The impact after a kick or punch must look natural. But that doesn’t mean I tell actors to thrash their opponents,” Varma says, laughing.

His team takes every precaution to avoid injury. Body parts likely to be hit are padded, and sometimes rubber is attached to the soles to reduce impact during kicks. “The only challenge is when the fight involves being barefoot or bare-bodied. Actors may have to take a bit of impact,” he says.

Varma’s job is to elevate the hero as a saviour, offering escapism, hope, and justice all at once. But the job isn’t easy. “For us, life is like walking on thorns. Despite all precautions, some accidents do occur,” he says.

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