A
set apart
Outside,
traffic screeches amid vehicle exhaust at congested Kanjur Marg,
an eastern suburb in Mumbai. Inside the Bright Brothers compound,
a decrepit looking sprawling estate mostly used by film sets,
it's a completely different world. Away from the peeling plaster
and smelly corridors, across a wing of the building, you step
into a world that's, in a word, futuristic. 'Sanjivani Hospital'
- claims a fibre glass plaque at the entrance, as you gingerly
make your way through back lit ceilings, artistically tiled floors
and draperies straight out of Shyam Ahuja. The crew has been hard
at work from nine in the morning and will go on till nine at night.
The shooting's at a leisurely pace, the director insists on just
four but well enacted scenes each day.
A hospital unlike any other
You could be forgiven for thinking you were inside a Barista outlet.
Luminously coloured walls, modern furniture and creatively designed
lighting that would be any medical intern's dream are the norm
here. This is what Omung Kumar has conjured up as a hospital set.
Realistic? Not by ten miles. But Kumar has deliberately used bright
orange where drab green would have been more appropriate, put
in ethnic chic artefacts in corners where a broom would have normally
stood and substituted wooden straight back chairs with designer
furniture. The idea is to create an ambience that would not put
a viewer off. He explains, "The hospitals I had been to at various
junctures in life came to me. I wanted a hospital to come alive.
I compared all the hospitals and the suffering caused to patients
by the dull atmosphere. I have always thought that a hospital
should feel good, give people hope - a new lease of life." The
sprawling 18,000 square feet of space in the desolate industrial
compound is just what the doctored ordered for a mammoth permanent
set like Sanjivani, he says. An army of 400 workers laboured
for two months to put up the set according to Kumar's specifications.
Set to succeed? - Sanjivani set designer Omung Kumar |
It's all for real
Kumar's ideas were echoed by Cinevista, which put up Rs 10
million to meet his demands. Original hospital beds, X ray machines,
an entire pathology laboratory and basic operation theatre equipment
has been bought to create the permanent set, which Kumar says
is his first. "The stripes, forms, colours I used are exciting,
energizing, yet not jarring or overpowering. But they make a patient
feel better, happy to be there and convalescing." The research
team even made sure that the medical texts on the doctor's table
are authentic stuff. The episodes are woven out of case studies
culled from the city's hospitals. A team of scriptwriters verifies
the medical facts with a panel of eight physicians to ensure that
"no doctor laughs at us".
Digital does the trick
Sanjivani is one of the few serials around today that is not
being shot by the standard betacam; the entire filming and editing
is done digitally. The cost of digital beta filming is four times
that of the betacam (which hovers around Rs 3000 per episode)
and the resultant picture quality 20 times better. It also means
that each episode takes at least seven days to be canned, the
production house has only four complete episodes in its kitty
as of now, but insists that quality is being maintained over quantity.
Each episode of the series that explores the human side of hospital
life costs over Rs 1 million to produce, says Cinevista creative
director Siddharth Malhotra. Cinevista has also retained a panel
of around eight doctors who advise the crew on medical terms and
shots. The team has spent eight months of research on assimilating
800 case files from various hospitals to ensure that the incidents
portrayed have a ring of truth to them.
Innovative lighting and decor set this 'hospital' apart |
Picture this
Not the standard close up-cut-finish routine for this series.
Photography director Hari Nair, who has films like Shool
and Dahan under his belt, says Sanjivani will have
a different look. "For starters, it is a new subject and on a
much bigger scale than other TV serials. The interesting lighting
patterns too give it a different look. The story told by my camera
is unlike what we see on TV," he opines.
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