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The cinematographer behind the glossy `bike' film
Nirav Shah on the sets.
HE IS the man who made Hayabusa look hot and Bandit look cool. Hayabusa and Bandit, if you didn't know, are the stars of `Dhoom,' which also has Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Uday Chopra, Esha Deol and Rimii Sen.
You must have seen them all on the posters of the film that hit the city on Friday. The Suzuki Hayabusa 1300 cc plays John Abraham's sweetheart and Uday Chopra rides the Suzuki Bandit 1200 cc. Five bikes that cost Rs.7-8 lakhs each were bought from Dubai and Singapore specially for `Dhoom.'
Looking at the promos, one would think it's a desi, scaled-down version of `The Fast and the Furious.' But no, it really isn't.
If `Dhoom' looks as good as any international bike film, it's because Chennai-based cinematographer Nirav Shah had a role to play. "Aditya (Chopra) and Sanjay (Gadhvi) initially wanted a gritty look for the film. But that was before we saw the bikes. After we saw the bikes, I decided to give the film a glossy look. It seems to have worked," he smiles.
`Torque' hadn't released when the Chopra banner planned the film. "They wanted a very `Taxi' feel," he reveals. And the producers flew down a couple of stunt men from Australia — Cameron for the bike stunts and Leon for the boat stunt in the climax — guys who had worked on `Mission Impossible.'
`Dhoom' involved 60 days of shooting action sequences alone. "We shot for 110 days totally, mostly around Mumbai, between December 2003 and June this year. We were shooting nearly 20 days a month," says Nirav, who had made his Bollywood debut in `Paisa Vasool' with Bangalore-based director Srinivas.
Nirav had been shooting commercials and assisting cinematographers for half a decade. In 1999, he set up the `Coffee?' hangout (Off Greenways Road). "Just like that. For a lark." Then on, he has been on his own, helping technicians in Bollywood.
"I just sent them my show reel. Sanjay and Aditya liked my work. Besides, South Indian technicians are known to be quicker — we set up lights fast, we shoot even without lights," he adds.
`Dhoom' being an `outdoor' movie, was shot with almost no lights. "The bikes were going at speeds of 200-240 kilometres per hour. John is a biker, so he did most of the stunts himself. When the camera and the bikes were moving, we shot at 60 kilometres per hour and sometimes we went up to 110. I've never done anything like this before," he explains, all praise for stunt master Allan Amin.
"The tough job was finding a location for shooting at these speeds. The roads need to be long and smooth, they have to be in Mumbai. So we used Bandra Reclamation road for the race sequences, and found some stretches in New Bombay. The opening robbery sequence was shot on Marine Drive," reveals Nirav. The unit also got permission to shoot on the Pune-Mumbai Expressway, where bikes aren't usually allowed.
"I did not expect it to be this HUGE. I'm scared of water. I had never shot on a boat. And there I was shooting all the boat sequences with a hand-held camera, sitting at the tip of the boat. I had never shot on top of a 54-feet-long moving container. For the fire sequence after the title song, I had to use six cameras." Nirav also had a bike crashing into him during shooting, after it came skidding from 100 feet away. "But I shot the next day."
The 125-minute fast-paced film has just four songs. The script depended on the action sequences. "But the Abhishek-Uday Chopra chemistry has helped. They have been friends since childhood. So it was a lot of fun, there was a lot of improvisation. The guys loved the bikes," he notes.
"John doesn't call his bike a `it,' he calls it `she'. He owns a Hayabusa himself."
By Sudhish Kamath
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Life
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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