The story of Ashwin Saravanan contradicts everything we think we know about how directors are made. He dropped out of an Infosys job that he “couldn’t stand” to chase his dream of making feature films. He didn’t bother assisting any director as, in his words, “I didn’t have the time.” He made a few short films instead. He requested his parents to give him a grace period of two years to turn director. When all of 23, he began approaching production houses. With the industry full of aspirants waiting to turn director for decades, you can’t quite blame people for telling Ashwin that his situation was rather hopeless. But now, at 24, he is almost finished with Maya, starring Nayantara no less.
Apart from making shorts, he learned about filmmaking mainly from reading “a few books that told me about things like the three-act structure and breaking a story into scenes”. Soon after quitting his job, he began work on his script. “I spent close to a year writing at home. My parents must have wondered what I was doing, just eating and sleeping all day.” His worst fears seemed to come true when the first few producers he met expressed their doubts about his capabilities. And then, one of his friends gave him the idea of shooting a pilot scene. “My friends pitched in with about 60,000 rupees and we shot an important scene from the film to show producers.” He points out that James Wan (The Conjuring) followed the same idea to find a producer for Saw. During this time, his biggest worry was that one of the various people he was narrating the story to could potentially steal his idea and make their own film. “I registered it with the Writer’s Guild, but what can somebody like me do if somebody steals my idea?”
The other problem was the narration. “I wish people just read the script. During narrations, I end up looking like a zombie, hoping desperately that people would be impressed. Narration is an art; one I’m afraid I’m not good at.” And then, without warning, Potential Studios agreed to fund the film. “I guess they saw the potential in the story,” he says, pun intended. Not only did they agree to produce it, they also organised a meeting with Nayantara. After his rather nervous narration, she simply said, “I don’t know if I can do it, but I know this film will be a great break for you.” A couple of days later, she called to confirm that she’d do it.
Maya is a supernatural horror film, and according to Ashwin, “the only other horror film that had come out when I began work was Pizza.” The unit shot for a total of 35 days, when he found that Nayantara came with none of the airs he expected. “If the shooting was scheduled at 6, I’d find her waiting outside her caravan with make-up on at 5.45. It was quite intimidating as I didn’t want to be the one to delay her.”
Graduating from shorts to feature films, he discovered, was both easy and difficult. “In feature films, you work with senior actors who immediately understand the scene. The difficulty is generally budgeting and resource management. I shot this film in 35 days hectically. This was a mistake. Next time, I’ll be sure to give myself a buffer of a few days.”
The scares in Maya are mainly in its “atmospheric dread”. “We have used jump scares only when they’re absolutely essential, and even then, it’s part of the story; not like a random cat that suddenly jumps out of a closet.” Like Pisaasu, he says, this is a film that humanises horror. “I didn’t think Pisaasu was scary though. Maya will both have a good story and be scary.”
Were his parents proud when they knew he was making a film with Nayantara? He laughs and points out that while that may be the case, they had bigger concerns. “All they really cared about while I was shooting was that I ate on time.”
