Mise en scene - Gem Paints

Gem Paints had the challenge of being a relatively new name to the market. But with many decades of being a paint B2B paint manufacturer, it was far from a Johnny Come Lately when it came to finish and quality. Its revered legacy of making industrial-grade, high-quality, high-performance paints for decades proved that it came from fine paint-making stock. And the only way to communicate the benefits of this pedigree, is by showing that Gem Paints is not just a conversation starter, but rather, a conversation stopper. By bringing in superstar Puneet Rajkumar as the brand ambassador, the brand already established a great parallel of its lineage. That it not only came from royalty but also has secured a place in the world by its own merits.

The only way to take an already strong script is to do exactly that - elevate.

The script in its original state mentioned a fight sequence being interrupted by PRK’s fascination for the wall paint’s finish, much to the director’s (played by Rangayana Raghu) frustration. To us, or rather to our director Sahit Anand, it brought out a lot of possibilities - Where should the setting be? Why would it stop a hero in the throes of beating up baddies? What setting would make this more impactful?

A museum, of course! A roomful of scattered, broken-beyond-redemption artefacts and smashed up baddies but god forbid if the hero rams the main baddie’s head into a wall!

And that leads us to the soul of the film - by showing the audience that Gem paints is more precious than the most precious thing in the room, we make a memorable statement about its quality and finish. So precious, that it even has the power to bring an entire action sequence to a grinding halt.

We took the idea of “making the wall the most precious thing in the room”, to its creative extreme by staging the first film in a museum - a place filled with some of the most precious things in the world. And when Puneeth Rajkumar refused to trash the wall, it really heightened the idea that the wall was more precious than every other thing in the museum.

In the second script, we bought out the idea of the wall being the most precious thing in the room by showing that Puneeth Rajkumar was not willing to accept an award because it didn’t live up to the beauty of the wall. In both cases, Puneeth Rajkumar elevated the wall to its well-deserved hero status.

In both sequences, the set was built to clearly show off the wall in all its glory. Both in the museum and the home set, the walls dominated the set rather being blocked and interrupted by too many props and unnecessary set-dressing. Both films were set to provide a comic tone, but crafted cinematically - clearly avoiding a slap-stick treatment in terms of the actor’s performances and emotions.

Client: Gem Paints

Agency: DDB Mudra

Agency Team: Vijay Joseph (Creative Director - Copy): Jamuna Pooviah (Creative Director - Art) (Navin Subbarao ( Vice President & Business Partner) ; Pinaki Banerjee (Group Director, Brand Communication)

Production Team

Director: Sahit Anand

Executive Producers: Anand Akalwadi & Boris Kenneth

Creative Producer & Production Designer: Dannilla Donald Correya

D.O.P: Pradeesh M Varma

1st AC: Praseed Varma

Art Director: Praveen Kumar

Music Director: Sanjeev T

Focus Puller (Cam1): Koteshwar Rao

Gaffer: Kiran-Cinemaangdi

Camera Attd (1 & 2): Gopi

Asst Directors: Rejin Chamandy, Prithvi Bharadwaj, Sachin Vinay

•Costume: Wardha Ahamed

Puneet Rajkumar’s Stylist: Yogi

Hair & Makeup: Sover Pukhrambam

Stunt Choreography: Chethan Dsouza- Chaos Faktory

•Stunt Assistant: Vino VK & Alexey Popov

•Fighter: Eugene

•Blast: Gun Anil

•Line Producer: Anand Kumar - Perfecto Productions

•Production Manager: Hitesh

•Production Team: Mahesh & Rajan

•Runners: Alphonse Raj & Jeevan

•F&B: Vittal Kamath

•Dressman: Ramesh

•Post Production: Editing/ Colour Grading, VFX: Do. Creative Labs

•Live sound & Sound Mix: Mark Reddy

•Cast: Vijay Joseph, Samita Balakrishna

BTS: Sachin Vinay