It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that dark themes and editor Lawrence Kishore are inseparable by now. More than two-thirds of his releases so far have either been horror films like Aval or hard-hitting message films like Thaen. Case in point, his upcoming release, 'The Village', all set to premiere on Friday is a sci-fi horror. Strangely, the man who had scared the Tamil audience so far with his spot-on jump cuts, is someone who hadn’t even followed horror films before Milind Rau’s Aval came his way.
“I took it up as a challenge and did my research by binge-watching all classic horror films in various languages and learnt how to effectively deliver the scare to the audience. Siddharth being the multi-talented person he is, gave me inputs to crack the timing right.”
Lawrence also makes a conscious effort to break the typecast as the horror film editor and works on feel-good subjects like Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi’s Paper Rocket. He has joined hands with the director once again for a romcom starring Jayam Ravi and Nithya Menen. “It is a delight to watch these talents perform as the first audience of the film.
I am sure the audience will like the film as it has an element that is unexplored in cinema. Being a trained musician, it felt like a dream come true to work on AR Rahman sir’s tracks. Half the film’s shooting has been completed and I can’t wait to show the audience what we have been making!” He also adds that he is working on a slice-of-life good drama starring Yogi Babu in the lead. “It is a beautiful film based on the life of a Nari Kurava man.”
However, his immediate release The Village rightfully belongs to the feel-dreaded genre, with a liberal dose of violence and gore. Did he have to tone down the adult content at the editing table? “Actually I didn’t have to. The supervising committee in Prime Video have a perfect metre to measure nudity, profanity and gore. They ensure that nothing goes overboard,” shares Lawrence.
The Village is based on a graphic novel by Yali Dream Creations. Lawrence assures that the series will live up to the impact created by the novel. “Usually we reshuffle scenes in a feature film to make the narrative more interesting but in The Village, we exchanged scenes in-between episodes to make it intriguing.” He also adds that the entire team had to do their homework as the idea of a mutant invasion is new to Tamil. “The Village belongs to a different world. All of us had to relearn from scratch. From my end, I had to get the basics right like gauging the speed and reflex of a mutant to make the right cuts.”
Lawrence has majorly worked with the same set of directors throughout his career. He shares that these filmmakers understand his work and share a great wavelength. “I am also open to working with new directors. For instance, I am working with Family Man-fame Udhay Mahesh’s web film starring GV Prakash. I also like to work with A-lister filmmakers, but I don’t want to break the comfort they share with their regular editors. But if they approach me for an exciting project, I am game for it,” says Lawrence.