Gautham sir (writer and director of the 2010 film, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, Gautham Vasudev Menon) doesn’t like to make too many plans ahead of time. He looks for spontaneity and is fond of hand-held camera work. I was able to understand this because I had studied him beforehand. When I asked him if the film would have a colour scheme, he told me to work with white. White is a colour directors of photography (DoPs) don’t like. If it’s a television shoot, it looks good, but white light hits the screen — and if the screen is dirty, the white never looks white.
I’m talking about film projection during those days [2009-10]. White worked with the theme of the film because of the Christianity angle and all the Kerala saris. The film revolves around an interfaith romance between Jessie, a Malayali Christian woman (played by Trisha) and Karthik, a Tamil Hindu man (played by Silambarasan). He [Menon] told me to take up the challenge if I could, and I did.
White Canvas
All the houses we chose were white, along with the 400-year-old church. He (Menon) was very particular about the church. One of the girls dancing prominently in front of the camera in the song “Hosanna” was from Malta. That’s how he learned that houses in Malta are always painted white. We then went on to shoot a song in Malta. This is the first of his films to cut to a foreign song.
We wanted the film to look like a plain canvas with some pastel — through costumes — on it so that it looked like a painting. I tried to put a lot of textures as patterns on the white walls so that even the dirt became a part of the idea.
Opening Shot
The very first shot of the movie was challenging to film. The descriptions from Gautham sir would be so complex and beautiful that I’d sometimes have to look up a dictionary to understand certain words. Along with a driver, I went searching for locations in Kerala. When we were scouting the backwaters, we suddenly noticed an interesting church. I slowly tilted my camera up toward it. When I showed the location to sir, he remembered the shot from my location-scouting video that captured the reflection of the church on the water, and he wanted us to replicate it.
So, I suggested, instead of just the reflection, what if we planned it as a 300-foot shot? The title length would be around 300 feet, and the film’s background would be around 400 feet. My idea was to use a boat to place the title card on the water’s reflection. We constructed a large 40 x 40-foot floating platform and mounted an Akela Crane — a type of camera crane — on it, something that hadn’t been done on a floating surface before. We didn’t have drones back then.
This was a risky shot, and we usually don’t attempt shots like these for love stories. I received a lot of appreciation for it, especially from people in Kerala. People liked seeing Alleppey from such a perspective, through my lens. There was also a lot of conversation about the moonlight shot in the film. Jessie’s house in Kerala is almost like an island, so I needed to make sure all the support systems were accounted for in the shooting plans. Controlling the shots once darkness fell was a nightmare — we were using helium lights on floating surfaces. These two shots were almost like filming an action film. If you watch the behind-the-scenes footage, you’ll find a lot of walkie-talkie conversations.
Water, Water Everywhere
To ensure emotional continuity for the actors, we made sure we finished a scene in an hour or two instead of spending a whole day on it. This also helped with the precision of my lighting continuity. We planned our day before the cast came on set so they wouldn’t have to retreat to their caravans and take breaks. They were able to retain the mood of the scene. Setting up a shot was very minimal. A lot of the montages were shot candidly, which helped us capture their emotions in a more unguarded way.
Once we decided on Alleppey, we knew we were going to have to focus on water. We chased water in Malta, too. We shot the song “Hosanna” on the island and the song “Omane Penne” around it, which gave us very interesting frames. That’s why you can see water everywhere.
Reflections on the water are beautiful, but they’re troublesome to get rid of [on camera]. The challenge, though, also gives you the benefit of a double image. Whenever I shot Jessie, I used more fluid camera movement to depict her state of mind. With Karthik, it was more static. These were done to underline their characters indirectly.
The good thing about Gautham sir is that if someone has an idea, he encourages it warmly. We used a lot of wide shots, which hadn’t really featured in his films before this. Maybe that’s part of what makes this film stand out.
As told to Sruthi Ganapathy Raman.