We’re sure you must be working on a new project. Could you let us in on it?

We are scripting for our next film. Again it revolves around a different aspect of Chennai life with the local cool dudes rocking the town!

Which actors would you like to direct in the future?

It depends on the script we are working on at that time. There are many fine actors around we would love to work with especially character actors that go by and large unnoticed.

The apparent chemistry between Arya and Pooja – is there something cooking ?

Arya and Pooja are great friends and this gives them a level of comfort. Screen chemistry is all about that - how uninhibited you are with your co-actors and how comfortable you are with the crew. Our shooting was conducive to that because everybody knew everybody else from before. Arya and Pooja share a good rapport and on set they keep pulling each others leg, but that's about it. I don't think there's 'anything cooking as such'

What kind of movies would you like to make?

There is that thin line where you can experiment with the film but still keep it accessible to the larger audience. Not totally art house or run of the mill commercial. As of now we are working on this voice which is funny, irreverent and entertaining.

The Oram Po script is really cool.

Thanks a lot! While we were doing our grad school in the US, we decided to make movies once we return. We wrote a script with multiple storylines, but all very simple stories set in middle class Chennai, a sort of neo-realistic comedy. Once we were here, we realized that it’s very alternate as opposed to proper mainstream. So, we pitched the project to NFDC. The script committee really liked the script and it was more or less approved. They take a really long time to process and unfortunately, by that time they had a change of policy: only to enter into co-production and not fully fund the film.

That’s when we decided to make a proper commercial film, but with a unique take and thread the thin line between parallel and mainstream. We were trying to find our voice as filmmakers and were wondering what kind of films to make, the only definitive factor being the film be set in Chennai and breathing the local flavor. It’s the city we were born and bred and the film has to be an ode to its spirit. At this juncture, while traveling in an auto, we came across this young dude who’s an auto racer. We were very excited and did a bit of research and found racing and stud mechanics to be an interesting underground sub-culture in the city. Thought this might be something fun and unique to watch on screen. There goes the story!

On Chandru and Pooja’s bold relationship.

Most guys, especially the wild ones are commitment phobic. In this case, Bigle’s attitude influences Chandru to be more so, though he really likes the girl and has fun hanging out with her. As for the sex part, the middle class, are the ones who have a lot of hang-ups and moral issues. The poorer classes and the rich elite are sort of matter of fact over it, though nobody talks about it.

As for Pooja’s character, we wanted to make her a strong and independent girl, and not this whiny, pretty damsel always waiting for her knight in shining armor. Even when her dad shouts at her and asks her about the boy, she remains silent and stubborn in maintaining her dignity. We intend on making all our female leads as tough kittens and not this cute, chirpy thing whose main asset is her dumbness.

In several instances, the script makes the formula stand on head, and gets better results with it than playing straight.

We do sit and try really hard to make each scene do its job best and figure some way of playing it against clichés. All said and done clichés are short cuts a filmmaker uses to communicate an idea to the audience. The point is to use something that seems familiar but give a different take on it. Of course, it doesn’t work all the time. But, this scene with Pooja attacking the guy who pinches her waist worked really well with the audience and guys love a gal who can bust their balls!

How tempted were you’ll to compromise and have the heroes win the auto race?

We were very sure of the ending and totally thought it would work in favor of the film. Nevertheless, there were a lot of people like our producers who were totally not convinced about it in the beginning. They believed that the hero has to win in the end for the film to work with the audience. But, once we had the rough cut done, they thought it does go well with the mood and flavor of the film.

Since we decided to let them loose the final race, the thought of using Cheetah never came up. We had to build up the drama so as to make the audience totally cheer for the under dogs, Chandru and Bigle in their run down auto racing against the swank Son of Gun auto. Only then would the surprise ending work!

Tell us something about how you chose names of characters.

We were looking for a young hero to play Chandru. Arya was our first choice- the thing we really like about him is that he has an air of callous casualness in his acting and a certain boyish charm which the character demanded. As for Bigle’s role, we were looking for someone a bit older than Chandru as their camaraderie would play differently than someone of the same age. It had to be someone strong and silent, whom Chandru can look up to like an elder brother. After considering a few names, we checked out Lal, who played the villain in Sandakozhi and a couple of other films. We liked his tall, well built frame and some sort of intensity, which would work for the character.

John was our senior from Loyola and we always thought his natural, loud style with a booming nasal voice would make an interesting character. Before starting our film, we did a short based on the script just to get the mood and feel for the film. We used our friends to play the roles and John played Son of Gun. He was just perfect and added that obnoxious touch to the character and we decided to retain him in the film.

The other minor characters like Rettai and Mottai, Kozhi, Mayil, etc. we scouted around for interesting faces and worked with a lot of first time actors. We can’t take credit for Biglu and Son of Gun as they are the names of real life stud mechanics, we discovered during our research. In fact almost every name has come from people we met in the course of our research.

The fine balance between style and commercial elements.

Even before scripting, we decided to make the film extremely accessible to the common man and not just cater to the critics or the elite, educated. After all, it’s the common man who still goes to the theater and enjoys the movie experience. In fact, there’s a certain level of honesty in the mainstream audience, which is more appealing to us than the niche multiplex audience. To strike the balance, we would just look inwards to see what we would enjoy in watching a good Tamil film in the theater.

How difficult was it to shoot the auto races?

It was a lot of fun shooting the race sequences. Our cinematographer Nirav loves shooting these and he stuck the camera on every possible part of the auto to get some interesting angles. Our biggest advantage was Arya, who’s a maniac with no fear what so ever. He was so good at the auto and could do all the stunts by himself without using a dupe, which meant that we could shoot more angles instead of covering up for his stunt double. Though we had to shoot with minimal resources, we tried to get the best out of what we had by meticulously planning the shots. Our basic idea was to keep the camera as mobile as possible which meant the camera was rigged to the auto for inside perspective and on tracking vehicles, jibs and our most valuable asset – NiravCam, basically Nirav in strange places hand holding the camera.

What are the city auto drivers saying?

A lot of them simply love the film and the auto drivers in front of our house are extremely nice to us, extending small favors now and then. Some of them like to have a picture with us and they are happy at the fact that they have been shown as normal working people instead of being villainous or extremely virtuous. Some of them have seen the film more than five times!

The Chennai drivers have a reputation for being obnoxious, rude and vulgar to passengers…

There’s only one scene where Chandru interacts with a customer and he’s sarcastic and refuses to take him to his destination. The reason we avoided this aspect is because, there have been enough and more scenes in a lot of films (at least in comedy tracks) showing them in this light. So, we deliberately avoided this aspect. We wanted the film to be about the underground racing culture and the kind of people who take part in it

The dialogue is vibrant, colorful, idiomatic and dirty.

It’s definitely not a total family film! Young people, especially guys really enjoyed the lines. People were laughing with the film. Those who liked it really loved it, while those who didn’t, felt it was crass and targeted at the frontbenchers. Even with the press and critics, some really praised the film while a few totally thrashed it! In fact there was a senior press person who was very upset that a woman is involved in a film with such crude language! On the other hand, some have memorized a lot of dialogues from the film and have started using it in their slang. This is the language that is heard in the streets of Chennai. We are portraying that reality here and you can’t totally sanitize the language.

The movie doesn’t really have a villain.

We didn’t want a villain or bad guy, but just an antagonist to propel the story. In fact, it’s always Chandru and Bigle who tease Son of Gun and push him to challenge for a race. Son of Gun is a loud and obnoxious guy, but not a bad chap. For example, even when he squeals on Rani- Chandru’s affair to her mother, it’s not out of bad intention. He already knows the mother and is touched when she offers him the last bit of biriyani.
While conceiving the characters, we made sure that the hero and his gang are no nicer or worse than the villain and his gang. Every story has its own requirements for the conflict. Here we felt the protagonist antagonist conflict is based on competition pretty much like in sports.

GV Prakash's music?

G.V is rocking. Making music for the film was fun because we were on the same page. G.V got the flavour we wanted and was able to create these great tunes with excellent production value. He is actually a perfectionist, so he will sit and tweak stuff till he is satisfied and then show us. Actually we really loved his background score on the film. He created musical identities for each character - even the autos. He added this whole new layer of fun to the film