“WORKING CULTURE HERE IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM BOLLYWOOD”

Shubhra Gupta, the costumer of Kammattipadam shares her experiences working in her first Malayalam film

About yourself
I’ m a NIFT graduate from Mumbai. I started working as a designer with one of the top designers Narendra Kumar Ahmed where I met Anurag Kashyap while styling John Abraham. There my work got appreciated and noticed and I got my first independent film Aamir. Since then it's been a long journey styling and designing for a lot of movies and celebrities. I love my profession as I love to create and design.

Some of the projects that you have worked
The other projects I have done so far are Aamir, Dev D ( nominated for best costume designer, Filmfare awards and IIFA)  Gulaal, That Girl in Yellow Boots, Shaitan, Saare Jahaan Se Mehenga, Tere Bin Laden3, Pyaar Ka Punchnama, The Liars Dice (official entry for Oscars from India), Golmaal 3, short film Boond (National Award winning film). I have also worked on many commercials

How did Kammattipadam come to you?
Rajeev Ravi and I have worked on a couple of projects together. We met while working together for Anurag Kashyap's film No Smoking and Dev D for which Rajeev Ravi was the DoP. There he appreciated my work and that's how I got this movie.

How was it working in Kammattipadam?
This is my first project in Malayalam. It gave me an insight into the Malayalam film industry. The working culture is very different from Bollywood. The people in the team really helped me in all possible ways to achieve the best. I enjoyed working on the project. This was a very challenging film for me as it was a different culture and a period drama.

Are you the costumer for the entire cast or for Dulquer Salmaan?
I am the costumer for the entire cast including Dulquer.

Preparations that went into your work for the film
I have researched extensively since it's a period film. I interviewed natives and many others to style the characters by referencing data belonging to that period. It was challenging since I don't know the language and the place. I used to go out to places in Ernakulam to observe people and make notes of their details, acts and characters. This helped me understand the place and culture. Apart from this there was a lot of detailed work on the look and style of the character since they were playing the role from their teens to middle age. I created different boards for characters for each era and designed the clothes for them. I did a lot of sourcing and research to get the right prints and fabrics to match the era and personality of each character. To achieve the whole transition of the character from past to present, keeping it stylish and yet rooted to the culture was the most challenging part. I worked in coordination with Mr Roshan who did the make up & prosthetics for the film to get the whole look of the character. I also worked in coordination with the DoP Madhu Neelakantan for the textures and colours to get the correct feel of each era and also assigned certain colour palettes and textures to define the character according to their age and period. Together it was a team effort.

How was working with Dulquer?

Dulquer is a very versatile actor. To work on his character was very challenging. There were many variations in his character graph. I did a lot of research for his character. Small details like the cuts to colors for styling considering the body language were all taken into his characterization. We tried a lot of variation of hair to get the correct feel of time and character. On a personal level he is very down to earth, sweet and helpful. He was ready to try and experiment any and everything for his character. He worked along with us as a team and gave some good suggestions too. It is good to team up with actors like him and I enjoyed working with him.

Director Rajeev Ravi
He is a very dynamic personality. I truly enjoyed working with him. Being a brilliant director and a DoP himself, he has the vision of getting the story alive.

Best Wishes Shubhra!

Jyothsna Bhavanishankar

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