Sanjay Leela Bhansali is investing all his passion into his next grand venture, Guzaarish, which brings together Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan for the third time on screen after Dhoom 2 and Jodhaa Akbar.
While remaining a commercially viable director, Bhansali also marches to the beat of a different drummer — he lavishes attention to every detail of his film and he makes sure he does things in his own individualistic manner. After keeping the sets of Guzaarish under strict surveillance and then deciding to compose the music of the film himself, Bhansali has found a novel way to shoot the songs of his film.Pony Verma, who has choreographed most of the songs for Guzaarish, reveals Bhansali’s modus operandi for song picturisations. She says: “In Guzaarish, Bhansali himself is the music director. As soon as he would conceive a song, he would send it to me and then sing it to me as well. And while shooting the song, we had a singer and a guy with a guitar on the sets. I would say 1… 2… 3… 4… music’ and the singer would sing the song, Aishwarya and Hrithik would perform, and we would shoot it. It is the first time I have choreographed a song to live music.”
Pony fervently feels that this novel way of functioning has enhanced the appeal of the song. Speaking from a choreographer’s point of view, Pony says, “When the song is playing live, you pick up a lot of nuances on the spot, which really helps the song.”
Ask Pony what the stars thought of this novel live format of shooting songs and the choreographer enthuses, “Aishwarya and Hrithik freaked out when they heard this concept. They were enjoying every moment of the music playing live. It’s a fabulous idea that Sanjay has come up with. Sanjay is somebody who does his best in each song. He understands the choreographer’s perspective and gives me full rights because he has a choreographer in him besides a director.
Not surprisingly his films are musicals — whether it is Saawariya or Khamoshi. He is one person who takes a keen interest in the nitty-gritty of choreography — he works out exactly when the actress should raise her eyebrows so as to get the maximum effect. While shooting, Aishwarya took keen interest and participated in them. There were times when we would stop shooting and talk about the feel of the song and how to touch people’s heart.”(BNS)
