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New York City, January 5, 2017
Manu Anand graduated from the Mass Communication Research Center at Jamia Millia Islamia, in 2002, and since then has worked in the Bombay film, television, and music industry. He worked on documentary shorts, shorts, and video documentaries before shooting his first feature Shuddh Desi Romance (Maneesh Sharma, IN, 2013). Manu's second feature project, the National Award winner, Dum Laga Ke Haisha (Sharat Katariya, IN, 2015) earned him the "Best Cinematography" award at the 61st Filmfare Awards. Fan (Maneesh Sharma, IN, 2016) is Manu's third feature.
Priyadarshini Shanker: There are two distinct protagonists in the film: the fan Gaurav Chandna and the star Aryan Khanna, but played by the same star-actor, Shah Rukh Khan. How conscious were you of this as you shot the film? Were there narrative, technical, or aesthetic reasons for lighting them differently or for preparing a distinct shot design for each character? How deliberate was this process ?
Manu Anand: The director, Maneesh Sharma, and I had many discussions about visual cues, subliminal cues, color palette, and several other visual aspects. These intense discussions helped us find the cinematic language ofthe film. A lot ofthese cues are very subliminal and not in-your-face. There are certain things that we did along with the production and the costume designer. There is a certain palette for the fan and his world, and there is a different palette for the star's world. The fan's palette is slightly warmer; the star's palette is a little more monochromatic with greys and browns. And we also tried to do some amount of mixed lighting in the film. So there is a lot of cool and warm light. . .
PS: So warm light for Gaurav and cool light for Aryan?
MA: Not always. There is a mix. For instance, in the famous pre-interval, face-off scene, when Aryan and Gaurav meet each other in the police station bathroom, there is a lot of warm and cool light mixed together.
PS: To follow up on that particular sequence: The two characters sit across from each other, and there is a mirror in the background that multiplies their images infinitely and suggests doubling on several levels. Was that mirror a part of the screenplay or something...