TICK TICK BOOM!

RAM MADHVANI'S DHAMAKA WAS LARGELY APPRECIATED BY THE MASSES. ANALITA SETH TALKS TO THE AD-FILMMAKER TURNED DIRECTOR ABOUT WHAT GETS HIS CREATIVE JUICES FLOWING

- ANALITA SETH

When did you decide that you wanted to make Dhamaka?

(Laughs) I decided I wanted to work with Kartik Aaryan We were discussing many projects. And one time Kartik mentioned the Korean film The Terror Live. So I said let's have a look at it and we decided to collaborate on remaking it. So this is how that came about.

But Kartik is known for doing rom coms. How did you convince him to act in a thriller?

My process is a very different kind of process because I make films with three-four cameras, or sometimes even seven cameras. With Dhamaka we used 10 cameras. I surrounded the actor in a world where there is no action, there is no cut, there are no marks, there are no lights. I did it in a very theatre meets documentary meets film kind of way. We employed the same techniques in Neerja and also in my we series Aarya. If my actors buy into my system, that's really the only thing I'm interested in. And I think that was the great thing about Kartik. When I said this is how I want to make it, this is how I want to shoot it, and he said yes, let's do it like this.

What was that magical moment when you and Kartik struck the right chord?