For 'Dirty Pictures', Chennai of the '80s has been recreated in Film City

Recreating bygone decades seems to have become Milan Luthria's forte. In his last film Once Upon a Time In Mumbaai, he transported the audience to the Bombay of the '80s.

In his next, Dirty Pictures, he has recreated Chennai of the '80s in Film City. DP is based on the life of southern sensation Silk Smitha and stars Vidya Balan, Nasseruddin Shah and Tusshar Kapoor.

The director informs, "Right now, we are in full Chennai mode. Wherever we look, we see people dressed in lungis. Tamil posters adorn our walls. We start our day by having idlis to get into the mode."

Throwing light on the kind of R&D that went, he adds, "The production designer, the art team and one of my assistants did an extensive tour of Chennai, Mysore, Pondicherry, Ooty and Hyderabad for two months.

They came back with 2,000 photographs.

These are the places that reflect the flavour we are trying to replicate. We bought books and watched Hindi and Tamil films shot in the '80s. We put all that together and made a colour palette for the film."

He further adds, "It's not possible to shoot a film like this on real location because a lot has changed geographically. You will find new hoardings, building exteriors; malls and multiplexes have come up."

The sets have huge cut-outs of Naseer, who plays a Tamil movie star. "We created two cafes and a sari centre.

We had to paint old taxis and auto rickshaws. We had to change all the number plates. It was Madras then, not even Chennai," he adds.

Having done a period film like Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai was he better equipped this time around? "Yes, unlike last time, we were prepared better for this. We did pre-production of seven months. The team is fairly experienced now having done one film."

Milan is happy about the feedback he has received. "When Vidya walked on to sets, she was zapped. She didn't feel that she was in Mumbai. Even a couple of producers who dropped in were stunned."