I was quite fascinated by the trailer of Darlings when it was released. And I am sure with creative talents like Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah and Vijay Varma, the film is going to be thoroughly entertaining. The story of this Netflix film and the humor attracted me most while I was watching the promo. Well, the film marks the debut of Jasmeet K. Reen as a director. In a recent conversation, Jasmeet reveals more about scouting for location during the pandemic and challenges while making Darlings.

You can watch the trailer here:

Here are the excerpts of the conversation:

On challenges while finding locations…

I have checked 300 chawls and done a recce of another 100 chawls and locations with my crew.  The aim was to do research, understand the logistics of the chawls in Mumbai, how the people live there, dress and their attitude and body language.

On taking a reference point of shooting as Byculla…

We Checked chawls and houses in Byculla. We liked a few but they had to be shoot friendly and we had to make sure we were maintaining social distance, all that proved to be quite a challenge, given that these are congested areas. Once things began to ease out with the lockdowns, we decided to build a set so that we could maintain social distancing protocols and shoot at the same time. Luckily all our research and photos helped Garima Mathur (production designer) and Anil Mehta (DOP) with the visualization and thereafter the execution. I took them there too later just so they could see the colors, the textures, and the light. Byculla has this whole old-world contrast- like old buildings with ornate window grills with new furniture. That is Mumbai- an old 19th century house and a swanky skyscraper in one frame.

On making the set look realistic…

Eventually the set was created from scratch and it is surreal how alive and real it looks if one has watched the trailer., What we built had to be real but interesting, and had to have our voice, the voice of the film. I always wanted print on print, the designs and walls had to have the color pops that we saw in Byculla. but this route can tend to look busy on camera. So with Veera Kapur (costume) and Garima Mathur ( production designer), we carefully planned the color palette which will be a true representation of the real locations, which will feel real and which will also be in sync with the vision of the film.

Well, with so many detailing and interesting plot, it looks like I am going to enjoy the joyride of the dark thriller. I am eagerly awaiting for Darlings to release on Netflix on August 5.