Inspiration for the script

"Being the son of a retired Indian armed forces officer, the conditions and the regular doings of our soldiers stationed at remote areas of the country have always intrigued me. The most intriguing part about the soldiers for me wasn't exactly the action they see, but instead the mindset of these soldiers during peacetime while stationed remotely."

"I wrote the script myself almost 4 years ago and it has developed tremendously ever since. Over the course of about 8 to 9 drafts, my family members, a lot of my friends, and the military personnel I got in touch with, were asked to read the script or were given a narration by me. Quite a few inputs from various sources were implemented but most of them were very minor and didn’t alter the crux and basic storyline."

"Music has been a dominant part in my preparation when I was working on the script. I derive scenes from the mood I set using the choice of music or background score. Each scene was broken up by the emotion that was required to be communicated in order to flow into the following scene. I ideated some of the shots during the scripting stage itself, while the remaining 80 percent of the shot list was created during the pre-production stage. The initial two drafts of the shot list were first created by me and then shared with the DOP after which we further developed the movement and energy of the shots."

Preparations and production

"The preparation for the crew was a long and slow process. While working in the industry I made several friends who I approached and asked to be a part of my film. Certain crew members where informed about the shooting period almost a year in advance since they were friends. Working as an assistant director in the Indian film industry gave me experience enough to be able to make my own shooting, prep and post production schedule. Earlier on, the plan was to shoot for 4 days considering the shorter day light hours we got in Jaipur in the month of November, but due to budget constraints we had to manage and shoot in 3 days as we couldn’t afford the location cost for another day. The film has been primarily self funded, but also by the help of two of my childhood friends who were made partners of our production company, as producers and co-owners."

"The production was planned to near perfection but it is quite impossible for a shoot to finish without a few problems here and there and we had a decent share of that for ourselves. I don’t believe in talking about the misfortunes of production as they are only part and parcel of filmmaking. Having said that, when it comes to problem solving, we have always taken the creative solution to tackling issues in order to meet all ends to satisfy the creative vision of the film that is finally seen on screen."

The post-production

"The film was edited by a colleague (Anand), whom I met while working on my first feature film. The first line up was created by him before I got into the edit room and thereafter we started trimming the fat. The edit was about 99 percent the same as to what was on the initial script. While scripting, I kept the edit in mind, which made life a lot simpler during post and avoided any reedits."

"I had a few tracks that I would listen to while scripting but I refrained from sharing those with the composer I had on board. During my first sitting with the composer, we saw the film a couple of times without sound to understand the visuals alone. Thereafter, I set a mental tone of the film in his head, which he conceptualized before our next meeting. It wasn't all smooth sailing from there - we had at least 3 or 4 sittings where the music was just not feeling right to me. Eventually the composer and myself sat in the studio for hours to find the right combination of instruments to be used. Once the instruments were cracked it was not so hard to find the composition fitting the scenes."