The freedom to think without imposing any restrictions on the thought process can result in great ideas. A standing testimony to this is Deeraj Vaidy, who is now all set to make his debut as a Tamil film director with the Siddharth-starrer Jil, Jung, Juk.
“I was having a conversation with my friend Mohan Ramakrishnan one day with whom I had studied engineering. We were discussing how interesting it would be if we could incorporate the three dimensions of physics namely mass, time and length into human characters and that is when we struck upon this new dimension of hit men and the title of Jil, Jung and Juk, which fit the characters beautifully,” begins the director, whose film does not have a heroine.
“At that point, we were not in the film industry and therefore were not worried about how we would be able to shoot what we were envisaging. We deliberately let our creativity run wild, not clamping it down with restrictions and this idea was the result of such a thought process,” he says and adds that the film will appeal to everyone who has managed to keep the child in them alive.
“Each of these characters has a name and represents one dimension. For instance, Jil’s name is Naanjil Sivaji and is played by Siddharth. Jung, who is a sort of timekeeper, is Jambulingam (played by Avinash Raghudevan) and Juk is actually a driver whose name is Jaguar Jagan (played by Sananth). These three are on a journey to finish a job. What happens when they are on the mission is what the film is about,” says Deeraj.
The film has been shot in just 38 days. “We shot in Tiruvallur, Chennai and Kancheepuram. All the interior portions were shot in sets. I wanted everything in the sets to be just as I had visualised and our producer was understanding and ensured that. We had no reason to complain whatsoever,” says the director, who says it is hard for him to classify his film under one particular genre.
“It has all the elements of a commercial film. So classifying it under one genre could be difficult. But I guess you could call it a crime-comedy or a fantasy-crime film,” he says.
So how did an engineer become a filmmaker? “When you study something as intense as engineering, you need a medium to let out the pressure. A few friends and I chose to shoot films. However, once that was done, we did not know what to do with the visuals. I also did not want to waste them. So, I borrowed a friend’s laptop and downloaded some editing software. All by myself, I learnt how to edit and ended up making a short film,” he says.
Now that Deeraj is a filmmaker, does he ever doubt his decision? “When you take a leap of faith, you never question yourself in the middle. If you do so, you will fall straight to the ground. Therefore, I did not,” he smiles.