Prod Designer Saini S Johray ‘The Night Manager 2’ The Family Man 2

Movies and web series are the kind of art that relies heavily on visuals. A lot of the visuals is about the design of the sets. In this exclusive interview, production designer Saini S Johray shares his experience of working on Hindi projects such as The Night Manager and The Family Man.

Sharing how research work changes with genre and background of a project, Johray says, “We do the research depending on the genre. If it is a contemporary theme, the research can be completed in two or three months. For something like The Family Man, or The Night Manager, we need to understand how a government hospital or a police sttation based in Chennai would look; or how a Maharashtra government hospital would function. The majority of contemporary research takes like two-three months and we get certain locations that we can convert into our sets.”

“The grammer completely changes if we are working on a project with a historic, or futuristic or fantasy theme. The kind of research then changes. The details for such a world are not as easily available. At least, not online. We have evidence for things such as contemporary hospital, or police station. Even for a project set in the 1980s, the evidence is limited. The process and timings depend on the subject of the project.” Only logical imagination can help create a world that resides in fantasy or mythology, he adds.

The production designer then tells us that they need to research on the era and socio-economic milleu that the story and characters are set in, to identify the set up they will have to create. “The Night Manager 2 and Gaanth are set for release, we are also working on Gulkanda Tales. Each project has had a different challenge.”

Talking about his recent project – the Netflix
NFLX
film ToothPari, Johray says, “The entire concept of vampires is alien to the Indian culture – it is a very western culture. When we started designing Toothpari, we had to imagine where should they live? We do not have castles, so we changed that to underground. One cannot go so western that people feel like it is a copy of The Vampire Diaries or the Twilight. The real struggle is to somehow make Indian audience believe that there can be vampires in the Indian society, and yet not appear too western.”

For the sake of expanding his own visual library and staying open to all foprms and styles, Johray watches all kinds of stuff and his favourite is the German drama series Dark.

Johray also recalls how he managed to complete the work that’d normally take fifteen days to complete, in just five days. Thanking his hard working and innovative team, the designer says. “I am a team player and it is not just about the work. I plan, but that too is practically the entire team planning. I need to plan it all – say if I need something on the sets (of The Night Manager 2 in Sri Lanka), someone stationed in Colombo will have to ensure it is arranged. A certain fabric or sofa or curtain will be procured with a local help and kept ready by the time someone from the sets reaches Colombo.”

Except for The Family Man, Johray’s two big projects are Hindi remakes of American and British web shows. He has worked on Anil Kapoor’s 24, and The Night Manager. “Both 24 and The Night Manager are remakes, so we had to make sure it looked authentically Indian and not a western concept forced upon an Indian milleu. We also had our own budget limits. That is the process we try. While designing films, we try to incorporate Indianness of the concept.” Johray now has an interesting project line up including Gulkanda Tales, The Immortal Ashwatthama and Gaanth.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity)