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Realism is the in-thing lately in our Bollywood films. Among the most vital aspects that render a realistic look to a scene is set design, though people associated with the craft do not always get due recognition. Sandeep Sharad Ravade, who has been working as an art and production designer for years now, is happy that all the hard work he put into his latest, “Mission Mangal” is getting noticed.
Ravade has been associated with films such as “Parmanu: The Story Of Pokhran” and “Thackeray“, besides Bollywood’s latest release “Mission Mangal“, which have been noted for their overall realistic appeal. He says in this day and age, authenticity is essential, and that makes it even more challenging than working on a fiction film.
“Movies based on reality are always difficult to do. You can do anything in a love story, but when you do biographies or movies based on true events, people already know about the story. You cannot go wrong with such a film. You have to be particular about how the city was looking in a particular era or what type of movies had released around that time. Little details such as telephone numbers or addresses count,” Ravade told IANS.
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“When you see the frame, it is not just about the character. If you remove the character, the maximum per cent of the screen is the production design,” he explained.
However, it is not just reality-based films that pull him like a magnet. In his almost two-decade career, he has also worked on romantic drama and comedy movies such as “Singh Is King”, “3 Idiots”, “Housefull”, and “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani”.
Creating the look and feel for a film such as “Mission Mangal“, which is based on Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was not an easy task.
“Right from making the satellites and rockets, authenticity was important. For that, we had to do a lot of study and research. It took us almost two-and-a-half months to do that,” he said.
Entering ISRO was a big no.