Who is a production designer?
A production designer is the one who designs the overall look of the entire film. He not only builds the sets but also conceptualizes them and is constantly present on the sets to make sure that the right look of the film is maintained in every shot. It’s his job to maintain the continuity of the look of the film.
A professional architecture
32-years-old architect Navin Kenkre is born and brought up in a middle-class family in Mumbai. And his mother and father are doctors. Navin says, “I never thought that I will be working in the film industry. My parents always gave lots of importance to my education but they soon realized that I was not very good at studies and hence I didn’t take up to studying medicine. I chose architecture as it is a creative field.”
Break into bollywood
Navin recalls, “I never thought that I would be a part of the film industry. I had no film connection whatsoever.” He adds, “For my thesis for the final year in college I chose to work on the sets of theatre. A friend’s, friend who is an architect happened to mention about my thesis to art director Kiran Khanna. She wanted to hire a professional architect to assist her in Honey Irani's film Armaan.” Kiran liked Navin’s project and signed a seven months contract with him to work on the film Armaan.
Shaping his career in movies
Navin enjoyed working on movies and got offers from many people to assist him. He has also assisted the renowned art director Sabu Cyril who has designed sets for Jodhaa Akbar, Om Shanti Om among others. Navin says, “I assisted Sabu in movies like Armaan, Laksh, Bhagam Bhag and Dhol. I also got many offers to design the look of ad films and I have worked on 75 ad films till date.” Navin went to USA for a year to study films set-designing.
Going solo
Being Cyrus was Navin's first solo project as a production designer. And he has also worked in Prakash Jha’s Turning 30 that will release on January 14. Navin says, “When the director of the film, Alankrita offered me to do the film I was skeptical as it is a chic-flick. But I found the story very interesting and decided to take up the project.” He adds, “I always make a character sketch of all the characters of the film and think what the colours that they would like, what is the kind of décor that would appeal to them and design the look of the film accordingly.” Gul Panag in the movie plays the character of a girl who is turning 30 and belongs to the ad world. Her house had to be done up very creatively and for the same, Navin chose a house in Andheri and decorated it the way the character would like her home to be – vibrant and energetic.
Navin explains, “Another important character of the film is of a woman who is a closet homosexual and is an art collector. We have placed many paintings in her house that subtly gives away her secret.”
Future projects
Navin has bagged an untitled film down south that stars actor Nagarjuna's son, Naga Chaitanya. “The film has huge and interesting sets and I am having loads of fun working on the film.”
Ask him how the industry has been treating him for the last 8 years that he has been a part of it and he says, “People do find it difficult to take a youngster seriously and hence there were times when I was told what to do and had to even if I didn’t agree to it.” He adds, “But thankfully people take me seriously now. Having a production designer on the sets is a relatively new phenomenon in India. But many new film-makers are making sure that they have a professional, intelligent production designer on the sets to make the film look good and real.”
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