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Set and match

Rajitha

Sameer Chanda (left). Click for bigger pic!

One minute, it is a beautiful building. The next, it explodes, into a black and blood red fireball that consumes the structure, leaves it twisted, gutted, skeletal.

In darkened movie halls, the audience gapes. In awe and some wonder, at destruction on the grand scale.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, there sits a man in mourning of a kind. A man filled with a strange sadness he finds difficult to explain.

Sameer Chanda -- the art director responsible for creating many an imposing set that has, to satisfy the director's taste for large-scale destruction and audience taste for gore, gone up in smoke -- is in fact so affected by the destruction of the beauty he has wrought that he refuses to hang around on his sets when stunt scenes are being shot.

What name do you give this, I wonder. Professional hazard?

Chanda is the name behind Rajkumar Santoshi's China Gate, the mega movie slated for a release at month-end. And yes, China Gate is an 'action' movie. Yes, more of his precious sets will go up in smoke.

The film, says Chanda, is very Seven Samurai-esque, very Kurosawa-ish in form. And is, in fact, a sort of tribute to Santoshi's favourite director, Akira Kurosawa, who died earlier this year.

The sets of China Gate. Click for bigger pic!

"A ten-man army with a mission," is Chanda's terse depiction of the plotline. And who, or what, do they fight? "You have to see the film to find out, that is the suspense element," he replies.

For Chanda, this latest project started, like most projects do, with a locale hunt. He finally fixed on an expanse of land called Gangavati, near Hampi in Karnataka, where he and his team then set about recreating an entire village.

"We were looking for dry, rough, rugged terrain, with a little pocket in which we could create the village," he recalls. "The thing is, I didn't want to make the typical filmi village with whitewashed walls and brand new tiles -- what I wanted was the lived-in look, and I think I achieved it. I must say," he adds here, "that Rajji gave me total freedom, not only on the creative aspect but also with regards the budget. In fact, at one point I overshot the budget and was somewhat apprehensive, but when I told him, he just gave me the go-ahead, made it easy for me to continue."

China Gate, Chanda says, is the kind of project an art director can really get his teeth into. "A project with a huge canvas is the most stimulating," says the ace designer, who defines his job as a mix of architect, interior designer and psychologist.

Psychologist? "Yes, you have to get into a character's skin, figure out how he or she would keep a home, an office, then recreate it so it fits the character," he explains.

Life, for the art director, is a school to learn from, 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year. "You are in a home and you see a housewife and you notice how she sticks her used bindi on the dressing table mirror for reuse, and you remember that," Chanda says, explaining why observation is, for the art director, the most important tool of all.

With Shyam Benegal. Click for bigger pic!

"Or you notice how the man, first thing on returning home, takes off his belt while talking to his wife or kid, and hangs it on the door handle or even on a switchboard. So when I want to give a house a lived in feel, these are the things I remember, and make use of."

It is only in the very late eighties that art direction gained recognition and, in fact, became a category in the national awards. "But the art director is integral to the film-making process," Chanda points out.

"He comes in at a very early stage. The director would have had his sittings with the hero and heroine, his associate directors, then the cinematographer. At this stage, the art director joins in, and they discuss locations, backdrops, sometimes even scout locales together. "Of course," he adds hastily, "Film-making is not always so organised; there are times when a set is required at very short notice, and then you just have to deliver."

His credits include two projects with Mani Rathnam -- first Iruvar and then Dil Se. "Mani pushes you to the edge," says Chanda. "It is like he knows what your best is, and is satisfied with nothing less. His involvement is complete, it is infectious, so you are stimulated to stretch your own frontiers."

Chanda recalls the time the Dil Se unit was in Dalhousie, looking for a likely spot to shoot the post office scene in.

Click for bigger pic!

"We were strolling around, when I spotted this old house -- and from that point on, Mani left it to me. When I converted a section of the house into a post office, he was thrilled. That is the thing about working with him -- there is discussion, there is give and take, he listens to your ideas and what we produce is a combined effort. Mani treats technicians with respect, he makes you feel good about yourself," comes the eulogy.

Innovation, according to Chanda, is another important element of his trade.

"Take Shah Rukh's house in Dil Se -- believe it or not, it is not shot in any one house, but is actually a mix of a place in Delhi, another place in Madras, and one at Chandivili Studio. Different sections in each place, but all used in such a way that you won't know it is not one whole. Like, say, in the real house, the staircase would lead onto the terrace -- but in the film, he is climbing the stairs and then he enters his room, and it all looks right."

If innovation is one aspect, observation and 'homework' is another, equally important one, he says. It is these traits, for instance, that a Bengali like himself has to draw upon when asked to recreate, say, a traditional South Indian house.

"What I do, when I go to a location, is make friends with an old person, talk to him, gather bits of info which I will then merge with the film's requirements -- the idea is to come up with a filmi set, but one which is anchored in reality, and this you do by observation and research," says the ace sets-man.

Can you give me an example of the value of such interaction with a local, I ask.

One of Chanda's plans for the sets of China Gate. Click for bigger pic!

Chanda recalls a vignette from the Iruvar shoot. It is one of Aishwarya Rai's early scenes, she's just had a bath and the idea of the shot was to bring out her ethereal beauty. "We wanted to shoot her on the terrace, in dappled sunlight," Sameer says.

"Our first idea was to hang an earth-tone sari there, like it was drying, then shoot her through the light filtering through it. But the locals, I learnt, would never air out their saris on the terrace in that fashion. What they do tend to do, in that part of the roof, is to put a thatched lean-to over it -- so that is what we did, erected something on those lines and shot Aishwarya in the sunlight filtering through the thatch."

Perhaps it is this attention to detail that lands him the best of offers. Besides the two films with Mani Rathnam mentioned above, he has on his curriculum vitae Mammo and Sardari Begum with Shyam Benegal, Ram Lakhan and Saudagar with Subhash Ghai, Rudaali (which won him a national award in 1992), Darmiyaan with Kalpana Lajmi, English August with Dev Benegal, Yodha, Nirnayam and Zor with Sangeeth Sivan....

Besides which, he has also done art direction for featurettes like Pitaji and Rukmavati ki Haveli for Govind Nihalani, television serials like Mouthful of Sky, Zameen Aasman andSwabhimaan, ad films, even created a 19th century Paris street when the French consulate in Bombay wanted to commemorate the bicentennial of the French Revolution. "That was very fulfilling," he recalls.

Click for bigger pic!

"What I love best is period films, because it involves recreating something that already existed, and that in turn involves research, thought. The biggest challenge is to make the set look real, lived in -- like, say, the Chandni Chowk set for Dil Se. When our carpenters make the set, it is all new, of course, the woodwork -- but that is where the challenge is, to erect something fresh, yet to give it that used, lived-in look."

Other than Mani, it is Sangeeth Sivan and his cinematographer-brother Santosh Sivan who evokes fond memories in Chanda -- Santosh and he have, in the process of working together, become good friends. "I like working on Malayalam films because it is so organised, everyone is so very involved."

Daya, directed by Venugopal based on the M T Vasudevan Nair script which retells the story of Morgiana, the clever slave girl in the Ali Baba legend, is his latest in that language.

And frustrations? "Sure. Like, we are called in at the last minute and told, give me a marketplace, give me a busy street, whatever. I don't have a clue what for, what kind of scene is being shot there -- I just have to produce a 'marketplace'. At times like this, I have to remain detached -- get my men together, set it up, and withdraw.

"There are times when producers, directors feel that so much of attention to detail is unnecessary -- but with that, I disagree. I don't believe in underestimating an audience. It is one thing to put up a 'godown' in a hurry -- but if it is badly made, the audience will see the 'wall' shake in the fight scene, and I don't believe in doing such work.

The sets of Dil Se. Click for bigger pic!

I like to get things as perfect as possible -- even the number plate on a car should match the registry of the city in which the story that is being told. But sometimes, there is this chalta hai attitude, which can get rather frustrating," he muses.

The course of his career was determined ever since he graduated, way back in 1979, in fine arts from Calcutta and joined art director Nitish Roy as his assistant. During the seven years of that association, Sameer was involved in projects like Khareej and Khandhar for Mrinal Sen, Mandi and Discovery of India for Shyam Benegal, Party and Aaghat for Govind Nihalani. And then came New Delhi Times, directed by Ramesh Sharma, and with that film, Sameer began flying solo.

While Sameer believes his art has improved with time, he also argues that it was considerably more difficult say a couple of decades ago.

"You see, one major aspect of films earlier was that they were monochrome -- just black and white. In real life, however, everything is in colour -- and this is where you need an understanding of colour, of depth, so that you can translate into monochrome. A trellis, a creeper, a bunch of flowers in a vase -- simple things, but the real trick is to get the right light and shade effects, since you aren't shooting in colour.

"Today, we have the advantage of shooting in colour, of using colour to lend perspective to our work. And yes, the facilities are much better. But again, the demands are more, costs and time factors provide challenges that did not exist in those more leisurely days. And yes, today, there is more variety to the kind of sets we are asked to produce.

"It is all considerably more challenging, more demanding -- and maybe therefore, more fun."