Mumbai: Jigsaw Pictures founder Rajnish Lall is pleased as punch. The former advertising professional-turned TVC and series producer’s latest production Murder in Mahim was launched on Jio Cinema on 10 May. The series has been getting good traction with most viewers binge watching all the episodes or at least four episodes at one go.

The production got the green light from Tipping Point and Voot in early 2022, and took almost two years to be completed. It’s based on journalist Jerry Pinto’s book of the same name which tracked the investigation into a bunch of gay murders in the Mumbai suburb of Mahim in the last decade just before approval for same sex relationships got the green signal from the government.

“I was attracted to it because I have an emotional attachment with Mahim. OTT has pulled off lots of thrillers and it’s a genre I love,” said Lall. “Murder in Mahim was especially interesting because of the drama and the relationships between characters. Also because of the social message it was providing about the LGBT which is still prejudiced against.”

Tipping Point – a Viacom and Jio owned studio – acquired the rights and Jigsaw came on as a producer. Along the way, it was collectively decided that Raj Acharya would be able to handle the script better than the director that was initially thought of.

“We had brushed up the script,” said Lall. “Our decision to bring in Raj proved right as he did magic with it and  improved on the final product.”

The production schedule was pushed forward from April to June 2022 after the approval came through from the studio.

“That proved challenging as we had to shoot during the monsoons. And most of our filming was outdoors., which is why we had to do a lot of improvements through post and VFX,”  explained Lall. “The budget increased, however, the studio compensated us for it.”

However, he is quick to appreciate the deftness of the director’s vision and approach. As well as Mark Benjamin, Anjali Bhushan and Mohan Bangera from Tipping Point and Manjit Sachdev from Voot.

“We worked well as a team. And we had a sorted director who brought out the best in two superb actors Ashutosh and Vijay Raaz as well as the rest of the supporting cast and the script. Our casting too was on the button and we shot for approximately 70 days,” revealed Lall.

According to him, what has worked well in Murder in Mahim, is the realism that the show wanted to convey. “We have not beautified or galmourised it; it is gritty as it can be,” said Lall. “The music has also been appreciated. We have a pretty decent show as everything fell into place.”