‘Walked up to Aamir Khan and told him this is not how it’s going to work’: Lagaan cinematographer Anil Mehta recalls ‘exhausting’ 30-day climax shoot

Reminiscing about the challenges he faced during the shoot, he said that the scene wasn’t written in a detailed manner until a day or two before the climax was scheduled to be shot. “The shooting of cricket matching was a very long conversation which went on for a very long time. Before I began filming Lagaan, Ashutosh had promised me that he would write a booklet, explaining how the cricket match scenes would be done because it was a crucial sequence. But that booklet was never written till a day or two before we had to shoot the scenes,” he recalled.

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The filmmakers had to take time off from shooting the film to discuss and write the scenes. “The whole crew was sitting in the hotel. We took a break of two days to write the scene and discuss ball by ball account of how it would be done. Ashu, Aamir, and teams of supporting directors and writers sat down to break down the scene. It was written on the set,” he said, adding that filming a cricket match scene required detailed planning. “You have to write ball by all break otherwise you’re not going to get it right,” he said.

The team also contemplated having eight cameras on set to capture the sequence, but Anil was determined to use only one. “We only had one camera and an extra one on the days required. It was a huge argument about how the filming of the scene would be done. We kept reinforcing ourselves that we were not doing sports coverage but a sports scene in a film, and this kept being discussed till the day of the shoot,” he added.

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As he continued to face challenges during filming, he spoke with Aamir, who suggested that they should follow the booklet. “He said, ‘Now that we have the booklet. We can keep bringing the batsman one by one and you keep shooting. We would know when they hit a six or a four!’’ Anil narrated. The cinematographer followed Aamir’s suggestion on day one but wasn’t convinced by the results. So, he went back to them and said, “This is not how it is going to work!”

“If I am shooting a drama, it must look like that. When Bhuvan, Aamir’s character is batting, I wanted to be up and close to him. When Kachra (Aaditya Lakhia) is batting, the emotions need to translate onto the screen. The emotions of each character were different. I shot Kachra with a zoom lens because it was so unsettling given that he was differently-abled and we needed to find the right posture. Every batsman and bowler had to be shot differently,” he added.

But one of the film’s most impactful moments came at Aamir’s suggestion. The actor urged Anil to make the final reveal as simple as possible. “And he was right. There were no expensive scenes and it was just the simplicity with which those scenes were shot that made them so memorable. We used highspeed cameras very sparingly. On Ashutosh’s suggestion I shot the “Hum Jeet Gaye” scene with the wide camera because the moment was required to be captured in a certain way and his gut feeling was right.” he concluded.