Nitin Kumar Gupta believes that outdoor action scenes with large crowds inspire awe in the audience

Writer-director Nitin Kumar Gupta reveals that it is tough controlling and filming large crowds in action scenes, but the outcome is always rewarding. The director, who recently shot for his film LAC, says that the film has a lot of such sequences. Talking about the same, Nitin says, “Outdoor action scenes with large crowds inspire awe in the audience and add scale to the film. Imagine Bahubali without its armies, or Titanic without it’s panicking passengers. That’s why I incorporate large crowd action scenes in all my films,” he says, adding, “In my latest film ‘L.A.C.’ We filmed hundreds of Indian and enemy soldiers fighting it out in rough terrain in Kargil, even as it was snowing. Apart from the main actors, I hired all the extras from Kargil, because they are used to the terrain and weather. We had an extensive briefing about what each person had to do before even allowing them to take positions, especially as they were supposed to be trying to kill each other! Things can get out of hand easily if the briefing is not clear.”

In fact, such scenes are a big part of all his films. “I filmed with 300 European extras in my film ‘Death of an Ambassador’, recreating the horrific truck attack where a terrorist drives a truck over dozens of celebrating citizens in Paris. It was subzero weather and the extras did not even understand English. But I managed with hand gestures and google translate, along with a couple of local assistants,” he says.

He adds, “For my film ‘Sayonee’ which released in December 2020, we had a crowd scene where the hero charges through the Russian mafia’s villa shooting through dozens of guests and guards before a hand to hand brawl in a huge jacuzzi. It was difficult choreographing a large shootout in the beautiful villa, but the warm jacuzzi made the actors and camera team happy!”

The energy of the crowd is always motivating. “In my film ‘Walk’ which is in post-production, we recreated the bus stop panic scene and the inter-state border crowd situation that happened during the lockdown. Totally opposite to filming in Europe and Kargil, this time we were filming at a scorching 40 degrees in Rajasthan and it was exhausting, but the locals went through multiple takes with enthusiasm. A loud ‘well done’ after every shot keeps everyone’s spirits up” he says.