Since everyone is seated around the dining table, their positions, movements and expressions really matter. We rehearsed for 35 days and choreographed the scenes. None of them were aware of the real culprit and I told each of them a different name. I even told a few of them that they did it. But I told them not to discuss it with each other. Although they eventually caught on to the fact that it was all misinformation, this created a certain stress in their acting because when the culprit is around, the body reacts differently.
When Vinay asks that question, the silence is just a small suggestive scene that they might have thought of her that way. Or probably not. It could also be interpreted as the silence of a powerful question. When you look at this particular frame, you can see both the head (of the table) positions are taken by people with absolutely contrasting opinions. Cijin (left side, blue shirt) is the one who doesn’t believe Anjali while Sudhir (right side, next to Vinay) is the one who firmly says Hari should be expelled. Vinay is in the corner because, in this scene, he is just trying to manipulate them. But later, when you see them signing the letter to suspend Hari, Vinay will be sitting in Sudhir’s place.
However, towards the end, they start losing their individuality and begin to mouth each other. So, they start standing and sitting anywhere randomly. And it will be Anjali who is sitting there. For this frame, we mostly used wide lenses because we were not focusing on anybody in particular as I wasn’t judging anyone. But eventually, when they are exposed, we get close to their minds and so the camera also goes closer. From the time Anjali walked down the stairs, there was a change in blocking. We used only 50mm, 85mm and 100mm lenses and had a lot of closeups.
