Jan 14, 2009

India - Railways basks in Slumdog Millionaire glory, looks for more

As Slumdog Millionaire won accolades worldwide for winning four Golden Globe awards, including one for its music and title song Jai Ho, the Central Railway (CR) authorities are ecstatic that a couple of the sequences of this movie were shot at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and between Apta and Panvel stations.

According to CR officials, the film was shot at various locations at CST, Apta and Panvel between November 2007 and February 2008 and it earned over Rs 32 lakh for using its services.

The CST station, where the Jai Ho song was shot - a world heritage site announced by UNSECO in 2004, has been one of the popular stations used by filmmakers for shooting purpose. The Jai Ho sequence was shot during mid-night when the local trains do not operate. Apart from CST, few sequences were shot at the Byculla yard, Pen and Apta.

Interestingly, Apta, a station in the Mumbai division of the Central railway and some 80 kms from Mumbai, has been one of the popular locations for shooting.

It gained popularity after the famous ending sequence of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and since then has been popular among the filmmakers. Even a sequence of Swades was shot at the same station. Both these films had won the national and other awards.

"The locations which the railway provides have a blend of rural and urban background. For example, the CST station gives a view of the urban background and on other hand we also have Apta, which is nor very far from the city limits, with a rural touch; we also have locations like Byculla yard which is also a popular location among filmmakers," says Central railway chief spokesperson Shrinwas Mudgerikar. "We also provide them rolling stocks (rakes) and we have made the permission seeking process simpler in order to avoid inconvenience."

On Western railway (WR), the Mumbai Central and Kandivli car-sheds are quite popular for shooting film sequences.

"Location depends on the requirement of any film. But the suburban rail network (Central and Western) provides you an ample scope to experiment for any filmmaker," says an assistant director who was associated with films like Dombivli Fast and Mumbai Meri Jaan, that focus on suburban railway in someway,

As many as 24 sequences of different films, documentaries and short-films were shot on the CR between 2007 and 2008 and it had earned revenue worth more than 82 lakh. This included films like short film made for the BBC on suburban rail network, and critically acclaimed films like A Wednesday and Jab We Met.

Similar was the case with the WR on which some 10 films earned over Rs 66 lakh during the same period. These included films like Ghajini shot at the Bandra Terminus and Johnny Gaddar.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

vab банк
vab банк
[url=http://globalist.org.ua/?p=19244]vab банк[/url]
http://globalist.org.ua/?p=19244 - vab банк