BENGALURU: A typical day in Harshita Reddy’s art department at Hollywood starts with finalising shooting schedules and evaluating the team’s progress, after which she leaves for the locations where the sets are built. An architect from Bengaluru, art director Reddy decided to choose the less travelled way and follow her passion for art and design. “I still remember watching behind-the-scenes clippings of Telugu movie, Arjun. The 13-year-old me was astonished at the amount of work and detail that went into recreating the Madurai Meenakshi temple just for a movie. That is when I got the design bug,” Reddy.
However, her father didn’t like the idea of a career in film but Reddy anyway decided to quit her civil engineering job and apply to the American Film Institute in Production Design. “I studied in BMS School of Architecture, Yelahanka, and was working as an architect. Hailing from a conservative South Indian family, my parents opposed the idea of their only daughter pursuing an unconventional career,” she says, adding that once her father saw that she was accepted into one of the best film schools in the world, he wholeheartedly supported her.
The 27-year-old’s earliest jobs included television film, Rent: Live, for 20th Century Fox that won an Emmy award for production design. She has also worked in Westworld Season 3 for HBO and recently, on Cherish The Day, directed by Ava DuVerney. “I am now a dual card member as an assistant art director and set designer of Art Directors Guild, which is a rare feat to achieve with less than two years of work experience in the industry. Right now I’m working in Goliath Season 4, an upcoming Amazon Prime series. My biggest dream is to design a James Bond movie,” she says, adding, “Unfortunately, I have come across very few Indians in my industry, be it people coming from India or US-born Indians, unlike other professions like medicine, law, and engineering.”
According to her, the fun part of being in this industry is getting chances to attend various film events and parties hosted throughout the year. “During the awards season, there are exclusive events like Q&A that are held just for the industry personnel,” Reddy says. She also admits that Hollywood commonly categorises all Indian movies as Bollywood. “In Hollywood, not everyone is aware of the various regional industries of the Indian cinema. They have a pre-conceived notion that all movies are musicals and they are multi-genre entertainers with predominantly larger-than-life storylines. But thanks to multiple OTT platforms and social media, these opinions are changing. Genre-specific content like Baahubali, Gully Boy and Sacred Games are gaining critical acclaim,” she adds.