Exclusive! Shiuli Thukral: Was difficult to be a production designer as it’s assumed to be a man’s world

The production designer of films like Shiddat, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye, Kartik Calling Kartik, and I Me Aur Main, Shiuli Thukral opens up on her journey from an intern to handling the sets of Bollywood films

What would a Hindi film be without its sets, simple or sprawling? And what would those sets be without a production designer? In an exclusive interview with mid-day.com, Shiuli Thukral, a production designer who has created the sets of films like Shiddat, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye, Kartik Calling Kartik, and I Me Aur Main, spoke about her journey, what challenges she had to face in her career, and what the process of creating sets looks like.

Take us through your journey from being a graphic designing intern to a production designer handling films

It has been quiet a journey, thankfully not a complicated one since I had decided to be a production designer when I was 14 years old. Design was always a part of my life. When I was little, I used to be very interested in spaces. Interior designing was the only thing at that time that people could recommend to you. So right after my 12th board exams, I got an internship with a very senior production designer who’s active even today called Sumit Basu. He mentored me. At the same time, I used to visit the office of the other production designer in Delhi called Amardeep Bahl. So I have two gurus. In my final year of internship, I went to Amardeep Bahl’s office and he handed me my first film and asked me to come to Bombay and that’s how I got into production designing because he pushed me right into the deep end and said, “Ab aap sambhalo.” And I was 18 or 19 years old at that time.

What are the struggles you faced when you first started out as a production designer? 

I think when I was starting out, back in the day around 15 years ago, because it’s such a laborious job, it’s assumed that it could be a man’s world, Mardon ki duniya hai and all of that, so the natural assumption was that there’s no place for women. I wouldn’t say it was sexism to that point, but it was difficult. But thankfully for me, when I walked into the industry, there was a film called Dil Chahta Hai and Suzanne was the production designer for it. Then you started to notice there were a lot more women coming into the industry and today, if you notice, there are so many women production designers. Because everyone probably at some point, had to prove to a man’s world that even women can do this job as it involves construction and certain amount of labour. We can also lead a team, currently the ratio of men and women in my team is very wide, most of the members of my team are all men, my carpenters, my painters, my assistants, and I have two or three female assistants. But the number of women in this department has increased multifold. So the sexism that we talk about is now decreasing.

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Do you see any revolution in Bollywood since a lot of female production designers are now working in films?

Things have changed so much, and in a good way The kind of films that were being made before to the kind of subjects that we are picking up today, every artist has a space in the film industry. It has opened up doors for people. And that brings about a revolution in the industry, when you start paving way for different films. Nobody is trying to put you in a box anymore or saying ‘Aise hi kaam karte hain.’ It started with films but now with OTT, it has opened even more doors. Everybody gets to do what they want to do and it has opened up opportunities for people. So yes there’s been a massive revolution. With me, there are certain kinds of subjects that I don’t associate with, I have to be emotionally involved while I’m doing a film or any sort of work because I do get emotionally involved when I’m working, so today I get that opportunity and option and everyone else is getting those options.

You recreated Europe in India for Shiddat. What was the process like ?

Oh my god, it was very exciting! One set construction in itself is a very exciting thing. And when you have to recreate real places, it’s even more exciting. So if I go back to my first internship with Sumit Basu, that’s when I realised what one can do. He was working on a film at that time called The Curse of Tutankhamun's Tomb and I was interning with him at that time. That’s when I realised what one can do with sets and real places because he recreated the entire Tutankhamun’s Tomb at Mehboob Studios in Mumbai. These are very exciting things to do and the whole process is very exciting. The amount of detailing that goes into it and everyone comes hands on. My whole team was hands on because even for a lot of people who hadn’t visited that place, the entire process was to creating that vision.

How are you coping up with the post pandemic challenges in creating movie sets. Are there a lot of restrictions now?

There are restrictions, right now the restrictions are getting removed over a period of time but yes, there are restrictions and one has to be super duper careful. The number of people I can have on my sets has been reduced. There was a time when I used to work with 100 people but now I have to cut them down to half. And it has become a challenge for the production houses to manage it. The pandemic has got in a lot of discipline, but the timelines are more constrained and the number of manpower has become more constrained. We can’t be blasé about the whole thing and say ‘Kuch bhi chalega.’ We have to be more disciplined. So in a way, it’s challenging for people who don’t like discipline but this new discipline had to come in. The same job that could take you three days, now often I have to ask for five because of the manpower, or the time limitations or the cut offs. We have to work within a system now.

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