The filmmaker talks about having a unique writing process for creating an action movie that has never been done before in India, references, and more…
Edited excerpts:
What was the reference movie you had in mind in terms of the intensity?
James Cameron’s Aliens. Of course, there is the violence and action, but beyond that, it needed to be a very emotional story. It cannot be about just one action piece after the other. If I’m going to watch a film like that, it is going to exhaust me as well. I’ve revisited Aliens a lot of times, and I found it’s a great structure and telling. There’s this alien which is trying to protect its young ones and there is Ripley who is trying to protect the kid. Now we are looking at the film from Ripley’s point-of-view, that’s why we find the alien as the villain. But if you’re looking at it from an eagle’s point-of-view, both are trying to protect someone. It’s basically the story of two mothers. This is exactly what I had in mind when writing Kill because I wanted it to be a film where your point-of-view should keep oscillating between the protagonist and the goons.
What was the writing process for a pure action movie where it’s literally one set piece after another?
It’s weird. I only write when I know how the movie is going to end. So what I do is I see the entire film in my mind first. I’ve been living with that story for a month or something, where I keep thinking about how each scene is going to be and how the character is moving, what the next scene will be, and so on. I don’t make pointers. There’s no method to this. I had to first write a very strong emotional experience. I was very conscious of the fact it needs to have a very emotional routine or reason for anything. Normally when I’m writing, I create a story and then I put in my characters. Because I’ve not done an action film before, I was unable to visualise the action pieces. So I called up a couple of action choreographers to help me, and they suggested I write the action and then they’ll figure out how to execute them. But that wasn’t possible because the story is moving forward with the action piece. I couldn’t leave it up to someone else because I needed to figure out how the beginning and end of the action were going to be; they were both part of the journey. So when I started writing, I was doing ghost fighting, then sat down to write it, and repeated the process, be it with the protagonist or the goons. For my earlier films, there was a process, but not this one.
Watch the full interview at:
Â
