Unknown to Mumbaiites, and without going through the headache of acquiring official permission, director Rajkumar Gupta has decided to do some serious guerrilla filmmaking for his upcoming film Ghanchakkar, starring Vidya Balan and Emraan Hashmi.
An independent genre of shooting generally adapted by directors to overcome the financial and practical pressures of shooting in bustling outdoor locations, guerilla filmmaking uses a skeletal crew that descends upon the location without warning and leaves before people are aware of its presence.
A source close to the project says, `Rajkumar Gupta wants Vidya and Emraan in places where film units are completely out of bounds. We won't name them, because locals will be alerted.
All we can say is that in the next two months, some of Mumbai's most populated areas will have two surprise guests. In the case of Ghanchakkar, this guerilla style of filmmaking is being adapted for practical reasons. Getting all the necessary permissions will involve a lot of delays.`
Gupta confirms, `After we finish shooting the initial spell in the studio we go on the streets to do some guerrilla filmmaking. It's risky, yes. And Vidya and Emraan are very popular faces for whom anonymity will be nearly impossible. But I've never made safe films. And my actors are game. So let's see how it goes.`
Vidya and Emraan will be shot with cameras hidden in strategically-placed vans. There will be no security guards with them once they are placed on location. So the idea is to shoot and run before onlookers' get aggressive. Let's hope they can run fast.