90 km from Mumbai, Karjat has surprisingly emerged as one of the most sought-after tourist destinations not just due to its remote serenity but also because of the BIG ND Studios situated at the entrance to this developing gaon. Sitting on a 52-acre expanse with unbeatable facilities, this studios has become home to several top Hollywood production companies like Walt Disney, Fox Studios. It is also the place where movies like Slumdog Millionaire and Devdas were shot. And now, the studios has gained prominence among producers willing to spend mega bucks on sets. Deebashree Mohanty visits this sprawling studio to bring home a host of amazing stories, including the one around its latest attraction — the sets of Chakravartin Samrat Ashoka
The journey seems endless with pockets of habitation here and there, barren mountains rising from nowhere and dusty roads more serpentine than an agile snake, but Karjat is one place where many roads are leading to. The small township on the outskirts of busy Mumbai is becoming destination numero uno for not just Bollywood but also Hollywood and the small screen production houses. One visit to the ‘gaon’ and you would know why this is such a great place to have your sets, remoteness being one major USP.
“It’s a mere village. You may not find Uncle chips or Pepsi here. But monsoons are great and summers are comparatively cooler,” the taxi driver tells you. He advises you to start early. “It may be only 90 km from Mumbai but the distance seems much longer and you never know what kind of traffic you might meet,” he adds.
Just 30 minutes into the journey and you begin to wonder why this place is so unique that Fox Studios, Warner Brothers, Garmount Pictures and Walt Disney Studios spent mega bucks building their film sets here in the middle of nowhereIJ Once you wade through the Mumbai traffic, the onward journey gets more pleasant. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is dotted with toll booths but that is only for the benefit of the travellers, we are told. One sharp right turn and our driver announces that Karjat is here.
You ask him why there are no milestones, no welcome boards.“It’s only just a gaon,” he rattles off in chaste Marathi. On arrival, the first thing that meets your eye in this sparsely populated area is the BIG ND Studios. The gate is surprisingly small and unassuming making you wonder if you are at the right address but almost as soon as the guards allow you to enter the premises, your wonderment begins.
Expansive land, a massive fort which resembles the Ajmer fort in Jaipur, a Red Fort replica which could easily pass off as the original, a royal palace, an ancestral market place, a mosque, an ancient Hindu temple, some grand rooms befitting a Maharani’s bedroom, an artificial lake, a few ponds, a farm with birds and peacocks, a stable with groomed horses, a makeshift garden in full bloom and a whole lot of rubble.
If this was not enough, there is a makeshift sleepy village which hints at Europe, circa 16th century. Replete with a city hall and village green, the quaint setting could have been anywhere in the Swiss Alps or the verdant English countryside, so real is this ND Studio film set.
“Don’t look so amazed. This is BIG ND Studios on a not-so-busy day. At one point, we even had a modern day café (in which a famous fight sequence for Salman Khan starrerKick was shot) overlooking the fort set of Jodha Akbar which comes on Zee TV. It was a nightmare for the cinematographer to create an ambience given such ancient architecture all around him. But when you look at it, it seems amazing,” Nitin Chandrakanth Desai, founder and part owner of this studio tells you as he walks you down the lanes.
We start from his latest, in collaboration with Omung Kumar. The sets depict the Mauryan empire to near perfection. “Chakravartin Samrat Ashoka, a show on Colors, was one of the toughest things to assemble. Omung went through deep research and came up with this fantastic ambience. More than 300 architects have spent days to get the intricacies right. I don’t believe in using technology to represent the bygone era so, for this set, we have used a lot of iron and fabric to make the walls and rooms.
The motifs and carvings are allmudras, lions and elephants which were used in that era. The artisans have so much experience that they get it right in the first briefing itself,” Desai says with pride. “One of my men has done the elephant and horse carvings on the wall of the main durbar and gate for Ashoka. It has taken him a couple of months but the carvings look original, the way they must have been in ancient times. I am prepared to wait but I want the work to be perfect,” the perfectionist art director says walking you through what he calls the corridors of Bindusar Palace.
What strikes you most about this set, apart from its grandeur, is that the paintings and carvings are minute and detailed. “During those times our kings had a very refined taste and they had the best architects. It is impossible to recreate the magic in its entirety but we have tried to be as close as we could get,” he says.
Production designer Omung adds: “The problem with that era is that not many things are documented. We have zeroed in on this set design after a lot of research and reading between the lines of whatever material we had. The pillars, for instance, are all from our vivid imagination,” he says. It took him a good six months of research and another three of assembling to put everything in place.
Such is the design detail that it looks impossible that anyone could have completed this set in just three months, so how did Desai’s team manage this featIJ “I have a huge team which looks into different aspects like designing, interiors, fabric, post set-up, material management and a team which looks at carvings and paintings and other technicalities. They work simultaneously and are given the freedom to improvise,” the man who set up ND Studios in 2005, explains.
The placid backdrop which is sought-after for decades by Indian film industry and the small screen location scouts has finally come home albeit through artificial construction. Desai and Kumar insist that this is where the future lies. “You want opulent sets to speak volumes about the show; we give you opulent sets which can be dismantled after the show is off air. Why would producers want to spend more for something that is right thereIJ” Desai asks.
If you thought opulence is the only thing that this studio offers, think again. BIG ND Studios also offers access to lakes and mountains and is at the vanguard of a new phenomenon: the outsourcing of film production. But Desai says this is yet to take off the way he expects. In 2007, hardly two years after its inception, Walt Disney, a popular Hollywood production house signed up to shoot at the studio for 10 weeks. In 2008, US-based movie studio 20th Century Fox signed a 10-year deal to hire four floors at the Studio. “We have done some good work in the past and we are only getting bigger and better by the day. It’s nice to know that the studios have generated a lot of good-feel outside of Mumbai too,” he says.
Although there is no fixed date to when the outsourcing of sets to Hollywood biggies actually started, Desai insists that it was after the resounding success of Oscar winning feature film Slumdog Millionarie that Hollywood sat up and took notice about the studios in Karjat. “Many portions of that film was shot here and that set a trend of sorts for us. Shah Rukh Khan starrer Devdas was another feather on our cap and since then we have just been growing and expanding. There are big things in store,” he reveals.
With so much happening around him, does he have many cherished memoriesIJ “I have one with every set that is constructed out here,” the the 50 something veteran remarks. ND Studio, which claims to have the largest floor space of all studios in Asia, and aspires to rival UK-based Pinewood Studios to become the world’s biggest film production facility is keen to cash in on its technical expertise and labour to attract lucrative outsourcing deals.
“Film production outsourcing today is a big opportunity for Indian film studios. This is so because the cost of producing a film in India is much less in comparison to other big markets such as the US or Europe,” Desai says. According to trade analysts, it would cost more than $60 million (about Rs240 crore) on an average, to produce a film in Hollywood.
The cost of a blockbuster, on the lines of Star Wars or Harry Potter, could cross the $100 million mark. In contrast, the average cost of making a film in India is about $5 million, the upper limit at $20-25 million. The small screen is not to be left too far behind spends between $1-2 million on the massive sets.
“Historicals and mythological shows on Indie TV calls for a grand set and producers don’t shy away from spending the big bucks. They understand if the ambience is not created, the TRPs are not going to come. Jodha Akbar’s set in Karjat is also an example,” he tells you.
What is it that attracts top filmmakers to opt for the studios in KarjatIJ “The convenience of the facility and proximity to Mumbai is what makes this a safe destination for me. BIG ND Studios at Karjat is a one-stop shop which helps if your film has extensive outdoor/indoor set work,” director Kunal Kohli, who has shot for Hum Tum and Fanna, says.
Other big names to have shot at this set are Ashutosh Gowarikar, who used Big ND Studio for some of the filming for his superhit Jodha Akbar and Madhur Bhandarkar, director of Traffic Signal. But despite having provided the facilities for films such as Gandhi, My Father, lage Raho Munnabhai and Salaam-E-Ishq, Desai felt the need to team up with a corporate partner in order to realise his vision of running the world’s biggest film production studio.
“I realised that studio production had much larger potential and independently it was not possible to exploit this opportunity. I had the vision and Reliance put in the financial backing. Together we put up a great show. As my Reliance partner once put it — the idea is that a director can walk into the studios with a script and walk out with the movie,” Desai asserts.
A film company can hire a studio set and boarding and lodging facilities for about Rs1.5 lakh a day.
