The Night Manager: Production Designer Saini S Johray Explains How the Sets Were Built Amidst Economic Crisis In Sri Lanka

The first season of The Night Manager shows that Shelly Rungta's empire is crumbling. The enormous stone statues at Rungta's home, intended to terrify and give a feeling of grandeur, are genuinely trembling if you look closer, this time from the perspective of a production designer.

Production designer Saini S. Johray describes how the crew completed the enormous effort of constructing the show's set in Sri Lanka, although the country was dealing with an economic crisis, by saying "If you carefully notice in one of the scenes, there are these stone like structures which are moving with the wind." "Since it's Rungta's villa, we wanted big sculptures, but renting out actual stone structures was expensive for us, so we made them out of thermocol instead!"

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The Sandeep Modi-directed show had a successful first season premiere in February. Anil Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapur, and Sobhita Dhulipala star in the second season of the show, which will premiere on June 30. Johray discusses how his crew stepped up to work on the project "pretty much last year."

The Night Manager crew was already in the "middle of shooting" when Johray received a call for a meeting, according to the production designer who has worked on episodes including The Family Man, Inside Edge 3, and Netflix's Tooth Pari. Something "wasn't going right" on the first day of the shoot, at that point. The squad wanted him to be a part of the upcoming programme that will begin in Sri Lanka in a week.

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"But I thought there wasn't enough time! Ideally, I take 2-3 months to complete a show like The Night Manager or The Family Man, he remarked. Johray examines the screenplay over the first month in order to create a mood board. He verifies the sites against the plans in the second month, and if the places don't work, his team begins creating 3D blueprints of the set that can be used.

The director and the director of photography will see samples of furniture that has been sourced and rented for sets during the third month. Johray, though, had to condense his three-month approach into "less than a week" for The Night Manager.

Although everything was "last minute," according to the production designer, the producer had a specific budget set up for production design. The staff was also aware that because of the economic situation, everything was costing them an extra Rs 500 to do the assignment. Johray made contact with line producers in the region, who assisted him with everything from finding local places to making connections with the appropriate individuals.

We were aware of Sri Lanka's economic situation and how it would cause budgetary issues. Instead of renting out furniture, which would have been expensive for us, we made the wise decision to begin removing used furniture from Colombo Market, just as we do in India, with the assistance of the locals.

"I created a unique fabric team. Then I ask my fabric team what sort of fabric will match with this couch and how many metres we would need. Let's say we chose an old sofa from a Colombo market. After showing me examples, they let me choose, and our staff would manufacture it in accordance with our specifications and established design. This is how we laboured nonstop to complete the mission. It was quite difficult," he continued.