Blood, sweat and tears ;)

Behind the scenes of the Hush Hush mural production

May 08, 2024

Hello hello, Long time no see! :)

For all those that missed the previous edition 5 min ago, I recently made this ginormous mural for SETU theater’s ‘Hush Hush‘ production - a massive 14x8!!! People asked me how it came about, so here’s some glimpses of behind the scenes….

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I’ll be sharing a lot more BTS clips on my insta stories, so make sure we are connected on Instagram!

Before anyone gets concerned, there was no blood and sweat involved as the title may have suggested, it was purely for dramatic effect :D (it’s still freakin’ freezing here!!) ….maybe a tad bit of tears at the end due to complete lack of sleep, but that’s about it.

Ok now sit back and let’s start at the beginning. But first, don’t forget to subscribe, like and do all the needful, so I can please all the algorithm Gods :)

I was approached by the director, and he wanted me to make a conglomeration of both the cities, Allahabad and Calcutta which were part of the play. So I outlined the elements in text and did a quick digital mock to ensure we were both envisioning similar things.

The dimensions then changed drastically and he suggested we do a staircase style since we would be using many discrete foam boards as the canvas. It was awesome to have a bigger surface area to work upon, except that my room wasn’t big enough - smh! So I faced the ‘wall or floor conundrum’…

I placed the 28 foam boards on the floor to realize very quickly that it wouldn’t be feasible at all to paint like that. They would need to be mounted on the wall - except, now new challenge - Wall is not tall enough :)

WallOrFloor — Wall or Floor Conundrum :)

Anywho, I reached this point and everything was beautifully mounted on the wall and it was finally time to begin drawing. But, I didn’t have a 1:1 replica of it digitally since my mock was in portrait mode :D - So, not having enough time left on hand I decided to wing it and directly sketch on the wall without a 1:1 digital mock :)….

Long story short, I fell sick, other things happened and it took almost a month to finish the mural, LOTS of hours and late nights especially towards the end. I cannot say enough nice things about my director who was extremely hands off and non-fussy. Two days before the deadline I finally showed him my progress and he loved it!!! :).

Next was installation which was another story - SMH. What I hadn’t mentioned to anyone (since I was already pulling long nighters) was that the foam boards had warped when it was painted upon. I had a rough idea on how I would be fixing it, but I had to prioritize finishing the work first.

I finished work in the nick of time and some amazing peeps on the team helped install it. I did not get a chance to outline it at home, so I worked on it at the theater before the shows started :). The rest is history - the play was HILARIOUS and every actor was amazing! I joke with everyone and tell them that I am in every single shot :D - which technically I am!

Yay yayy yayyyy to an amazing project and set of people! Sometimes we get so LUCKY meeting great people who believe in us and support us!. Thank you Da! Thank you SETU team!

Calcutta and Allahabad Cast - Picture by Fotu Duniya

Only A Decade Late ... Because it's never too late to get creative

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