Photos courtesy Vision Factory | Design by Saad Arifi
“I am going to steal your directorial style,” I tell Asim Raza. The man, ever so humble with a convivial smile, nods, like a teacher willing to share his talents.
It is past two in the morning and we are at Studio 146 in Karachi’s Korangi industrial area, where a perky animated number called Balma Bhagora, a final addition to Parey Hut Love’s (PHL) soundtrack, is being shot.
In one corner, cinematographer Salman Razzaq is sitting dead tired with the Sandman hovering over him with sleep dust. On his left, an editor cuts away okay-ed takes, putting together a rough cut on the fly for a preview. A few feet away, in one corner, PHL’s lead actor and producer, Sheheryar Munawar, is ripping out a cheque from a heavy, well-torn cheque book.
Despite the loudness of the song, Raza, sitting right next to me, is calm as a millpond, directing everything from Nigah Hussain’s choreography to perceptively noticing and ironing out the minutest inconsistencies. And by ‘minutest’, I mean ‘almost invisible to the naked eye’, such as the crinkled fall of saris to misaligned dance steps.
Director Asim Raza’s Parey Hut Love is a gamble — that he and his star team can make a mainstream film, even one with obvious clichés, such a satisfying and entertaining experience that it rakes in big bucks at the box office. Will they pull it off?
Balma Bhagora is being shot in front of a relatively small green-screen, which will be replaced in post with animated artwork.
Zara Noor Abbas, wearing a heavily embroidered dress and finishing up her solo steps, practically owns the segment of the song she is performing in. Her pumped-up energy, thanks to the peppy beat, is akin to that of the Energizer bunny from the battery commercials.
A soon as she finishes, Razzaq (whose film credits include JPNA 2 and Baaji), is asked to change the lens to a relatively wide-angled one for Ahmed Ali Butt’s rap solo. With Butt standing only a few feet away from the lens, the glass distorts Butt’s features, making them slightly oval-ish.
As Butt lines himself up, Abbas slumps into a nearby chair; her costume, is now a burden. It is too heavy to drag around for an all-night shoot. It is here that one actually notices the finer aspects of the shoot.
Abbas’s attire and make-up is in stark contrast to Maya Ali’s modern, bare-backed top and punked-up look. In fact, everyone has a unique oddball look to them. No two get-ups are alike — unless one takes a moment to put two and two together.
Actors playing couples, such as Faheem Azam and Rachel Viccaji (in the role of a Parsi couple), or Maya Ali and lead actor Sheheryar Munawar, have matching costumes. Some, like Shahbaz Shigri — playing Ali’s fiancée (as seen in the trailer) — is wearing a suit. There seem to be tell-tale spoilers all over the place.
But just as I begin to speculate, Munawar whisks me off to a waiting room.
This is my first time meeting Munawar and he is evidently intoxicated by the energy on the set. For the next three hours, fortified by three cups of tea, I learn that Munawar is a stickler for details. We discuss complex character and plot arcs without him spilling details of PHL’s story; surprisingly, he knows exactly what he is talking about in technical terms — precise theoretical knowledge is hard to come by.