Location Diaries: Star dust

Actor Vikranth plays a catering contractor in his next, Nenjil Thunivirundhal, that is being directed by Suseenthiran. The film, co-starring Sundeep Kishan and Mehrene Pirzada, is the actor's first Tamil and Telugu bilingual. A significant part of the film was recently shot in Vizag  at an old factory near the beach. But it was not your usual dilapidated factory. This was one that had all sorts of creepy crawlies, including snakes under all the shredded paper lying around the facility.

When the unit landed up at the factory, they were also alarmed at the amount of dust that had accumulated inside. During the fight scenes choreographed by Anbariv, this dust flew all around. As Vikranth would spend an hour getting his make-up ready for the scenes, which involved him having  a swollen, bloodied eye and a beaten-up look, the dust would often stick to his face. "Even though director Suseenthiran had sent his team to first put in props and clean up the place a little, the dust was too much to handle. It got into my eyes, nostrils, hair, throat...," says Vikranth. The result: a serious dust allergy with headaches, sore throat and fever.

This wasn't all he had to endure for the film. During a 22-day schedule in Vizag, the actor spent sleepless nights... literally. He says he must have got about three hours of sleep each day. The film was mostly shot in the night, and so he usually had to shoot from about 7 pm to 5 am on live locations in the city. The following morning, he would have to wake up after a quick three-hour nap, and head to the day shoot, which lasted till 6 pm. "After about 10 days, many of us began to get restless as we got so little sleep for almost three continuous weeks. All along, I kept telling myself that this was a big film with director Suseenthiran and that I should keep going for as long as I could," says Vikranth, who hopes that all these challenges would be repaid by the audience's positive verdict when the film gets released.