text stringlengths 0 238k |
|---|
working title no longer relevant, [16] Khan, Gupte, and Bhatia discussed |
several alternatives, [17] eventually deciding on Taare Zameen Par. Possible |
translations of this title include Stars on the Ground [18] and Like Stars on |
Earth . [19] According to Khan: Taare Zameen Par is a film about children and |
it is a film which celebrates the abilities of children. Taare Zameen Par is a |
title which denotes that aspect. It is a title with a very positive feel to |
it. All the kids are special and wonderful. They are like stars on earth. This |
particular aspect gave birth to the title. [17] Filming [ edit ] Principal |
photography took place in India over five months. [20] Khan spent his first |
two days as director blocking the first scene to be filmed: Ishaan returning |
home from school and putting away his recently collected fish. [21] Believing |
the audience should not be aware of the camera, he chose a simple shooting |
style that involved relatively little camera movement . [22] The opening scene |
of Ishaan collecting fish outside his school was shot on location and at Film |
City . The shots of Ishaan took place at the former, while those involving the |
gutter terrarium were filmed at a water tank at the latter. The tank's water |
often became murky, forcing production to constantly empty and refill it, and |
causing the scene to take eight hours to film. [23] The film's next sequence |
involved Ishaan playing with two dogs. To compensate for the "absolutely |
petrified" Safary, most joint shots used a body double, though other portions |
integrated close-up shots of the actor. [24] Ishaan's nightmare—he becomes |
separated from his mother at a train station and she departs on a train while |
he is trapped in a crowd—was filmed in Mumbai on a permanent railway-station |
set. To work around the train set piece's immobility, production placed the |
camera on a moving trolley to create the illusion of a departing train. For |
the sequences related from the mother's point of view—shot from behind the |
actress—Chopra stood on a trolley next to a recreated section of the train's |
door. [25] All the school sequences were filmed on location. The production |
team searched for a Mumbai school with an "oppressive" feel to establish the |
"heaviness of being in a metropolitan school", [26] and eventually chose St. |
Xavier's School . [27] As the school is situated along a main road filming |
took place on weekends, to minimise the background noise, but an early scene |
in which Ishaan is sent out of the classroom was filmed on the day of the |
Mumbai Marathon . The production staff placed acrylic sheets invisible to the |
naked eye on the classroom windows to mask the sounds of nearby crowds and |
helicopters. [28] New Era High School served as Ishaan's boarding school. The |
change of setting was a "breath of fresh air" for the production crew, who |
moved from Ishaan's small house in Mysore Colony, Chembur to the "vast, |
beautiful environs" of Panchgani . [29] Production relied on stock footage for |
the brief scene of a bird feeding its babies. Khan carefully selected a clip |
to his liking, but learned three weeks before the film's release that the |
footage was not available in the proper format. With three days to replace it |
or else risk delaying the release, Khan made do with what he could find. He |
says that he "cringes" every time he sees it. [30] Children [ edit ] Real |
schoolchildren participated throughout the movie's filming. Khan credited them |
with the film's success, and was reportedly very popular with them. [15] |
Furthermore, Khan placed a high priority on the day-to-day needs of his child |
actors, and went to great lengths to attend to them. [17] The production staff |
made sure that the students were never idle, and always kept them occupied |
outside of filming. [31] New Era Faculty Coordinator Douglas Lee thought the |
experience not only helped the children to learn patience and co-operation, |
but also gave them a better understanding of how they should behave towards |
children like Ishaan who have problems in school. [32] Because filming at New |
Era High School occurred during the winter holiday, those portraying Ishaan's |
classmates gave up their vacation to participate. [33] To fill in the campus |
background, students from nearby schools were also brought in. [34] A total of |
1,500 children were used for wide-shots of the film's art-fair climax; medium |
shots only required 400 students. [35] New to acting, the children often made |
errors such as staring into the camera, and Khan resorted to unorthodox |
methods to work around their rookie mistakes. For example, an early scene in |
the film featured a school assembly; Khan wanted the students to act naturally |
and to ignore the principal's speech, but recognised that this would be a |
difficult feat with cameras present. First Assistant Director Sunil Pandey |
spoke continuously in an attempt to "bore the hell out of [them]", and they |
eventually lost interest in the filming and behaved normally. [36] A later |
scene involved Nikumbh enlightening his class about famous people with |
dyslexia, and the children's responses to his speech were the last portion to |
be filmed. Having already spent 3–4 days hearing the dialogue the children's |
reactions were "jaded". Khan opted to film them while he recited a tale, and |
manipulated his storytelling to achieve the varying spontaneous reactions. |
[37] The following scene had the children playing around a nearby pond. |
Horrified when he learned that the water was 15 feet (4.6 m) deep, Khan |
recruited four lifeguards in case a child fell in. [38] Khan found it |
important that the audience connect the film to real children, and had Pandey |
travel throughout India filming documentary-style footage of children from all |
walks of life. Those visuals were integrated into the end credits. [39] Art |
and animation [ edit ] While claymation has been used in Indian television |
commercials, [40] the film's title sequence—a representation of Ishaan's |
imagination [41] —marked its first instance in a Bollywood film. [42] Khan |
gave claymation artist Dhimant Vyas free rein over the various elements. [43] |
The storyboarding took one and a half months and the shooting required 15 |
days. [40] The "3 into 9" sequence, in which Ishaan delves into his |
imagination to solve a math problem, was originally conceived as a 3D |
animation. Halfway through its creation, however, Khan felt it was not turning |
out as he had envisioned it. Khan scrapped the project and hired Vaibhav |
Kumaresh, who hand-drew the scene as a 2D animation. [44] Artist Samir Mondal |
composed Ishaan and Nikumbh's art-fair watercolor paintings. He held a |
workshop with the schoolchildren, and incorporated elements from their artwork |
into Ishaan's. [45] Mondal also instructed Khan on a painter's typical |
mannerisms and movements. [46] Gupte created the rest of Ishaan's artwork and |
Assistant Art Director Veer Nanavati drew Ishaan's flipbook. [47] The art |
department's designs for Ishaan's school notebooks disappointed Khan, who had |
familiarized himself with dyslexic writing. Using his left hand, Khan instead |
wrote it himself. [48] Musical sequences [ edit ] The musical sequence of |
"Jame Raho" establishes the characters of the four members of Ishaan's family; |
for example, the father is hardworking and responsible, and Yohaan is an |
"ideal son" who does all the right things. A robotic style of music overlaps |
most of the sequence—this is mirrored by the machine-like morning routines of |
the mother, father, and Yohaan—but changes for Ishaan's portion to imply that |
he is different from the rest. This concept is furthered by speed ramping and |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.