Anti-clocks set stage for period films

AMRITA MUKHERJEE / TNN / Jan 5, 2006, 23:05 IST

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Erecting the sets of a film is a tough job and if it is a period film, the job becomes tougher.

Erecting the sets of a film is a tough job and if it is a period film, the job becomes tougher.
Erecting the sets of a film is a tough job and if it is a period film, the job becomes tougher. Ask any set designer and they will tell you why.
The problem lies in sourcing the furniture. Take for instance Goutam Ghose's latest film Yatra. Samir Chanda, who is doing the sets for the film, sent his boys to the shooting spot days before shooting actually started, just to source the furniture.
Rajat, who works in Chanda's team said, "The idea was to recreate old Hyderabad. We actually tapped contacts and went to people's homes asking them to lend us the furniture.

Convincing them was a difficult job because antique furniture is always very precious. The shifting part is even more difficult because one has to be extra careful."
In case of Yatra, Goutam Ghose's contacts in Hyderabad also helped. "I shot here years back for Maa Bhoomi. So I knew people here....
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In Hyderabad there are many people who have amazing antique furniture in their homes," said Ghose. Even when shooting was over Chanda's team had to stay back in Hyderabad just to return the furniture.

"Some people are coming over and taking it back along with the payments and we ourselves are delivering the goods to some people," said Rajat.
Bibi Roy, who did the sets for Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali agrees that sourcing the furniture is the toughest job. "When I was doing the sets of Chokher Bali I came across this exquisite chest of drawers at a person's place.
I requested them to lend me the drawer for a few days. They did not agree. So I got my carpenter and created an exact replica. Sadly we could not replicate the knobs, we used brass instead.
It was a time-taking endeavour but you always have to be extra careful when you are dealing with a period film," said Roy adding, "Although Paromitar Ekdin was not a period film but Paromita's in-law's home was a typical North Kolkata house with an old-world charm...
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We could not get a dining table with the oval marble top so I actually had it made at a marble shop." Converting the new into the old can be even more laborious.
Nobody knows that better than Pallavi Chatterjee, who was the assigned producer of the serial Sahib Biwi Ghulam. She had to do her homework for eight months before she started working on the sets along with the set-designer.
"Sahib Biwi Ghulam was a story set 200 years ago. So when I was looking at the furniture I had to check if this kind of paisley leaf design was there at that time or the woodwork is authentic enough.
We had half the furniture made because it was impossible to source it all," said Pallavi.
amrita.mukherjee@timesgroup.com

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