‘GUNDAY’ HAS BEEN SHOT IN A REAL COAL MINE

YRF’s upcoming flick ‘Gunday’ is one of the first films to be shot in a real coal mine.

‘Gunday’ was one of last narrations of Yash Chopra. He gave green signal to the project and also gave a lot of his inputs for the film.

The legendary filmmaker was very keen for Ali to shoot the film at an actual coal mine. He felt that while shooting for ‘Kaala Patthar’(starring Amitabh Bachchan), he himself did not take the plunge. He insisted on the fact that Ali should definitely shoot at a coal mine and also shared details of his experience and details about the coal mines.

Yashji eagerly even shared options of where can the shoot take place. When the film went into production YRF was very excited to weave this through. The coal mine shots are done in an open cast mine in Raniganj which is 3 hours away from Kolkata. None of the films before has been shot in this area, not even, a Bengali or small scale film.

However, the permission bit was not a problem. In fact, all the nitty gritties worked out smoothly for them.

When the team went for a recce, the authorities gave them access during lunch breaks for them to scan and plan things. The director of the film, Ali also interacted with miners to closely understand their way of life, their work conditions etc. He also photographed them to make sure he gets the nuances of the look right.

When they went back to shoot, there was an entire area which was allotted to them. The shooting schedule was for two weeks and they had no interference from the miners. The only little hitch was that while they shot every day, a huge sea of people gathered there out of curiosity.The people used to sit there all day long eagerly observing the shoot.

The whole team is quite happy with the final product and Ali has been glad that Yashji advised him to go to an actual mine. His experience of shooting there and the way the film has visually taken shape would not have been the same.

‘Gunday’ stars Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. The film will be hitting the screens on 14th Feb.