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Umeish Yamgaar, the Creative Producer of Nadaan Parinde on Life OK has had a phenomenal experience as Casting Consultant and Co-ordinator, setting up many successful shows on television. With a desire to handle many other responsibilities that are needed to set up a show, the man took up the task of being the Creative Producer in Imtiaz Punjabi and Chokkas Bhaardwaj's Scaling Heights Productions.

Handling a show like Nadaan Parinde which is being shot in Chandigarh, completely out of the comfort zone of Mumbai has been a tough and challenging task. And Umeish has carried out his job to the best of his efforts, that too under the most demanding and toughest of situations. In an exclusive conversation with Tellychakkar.com, Umeish talks us through the various hardships that prevailed in setting up this unique show and carrying it forward. Excerpts:

From being the Casting Consultant and Co-ordinator, how did you enjoy the role of Creative Producer?

Well, I chose this role deliberately as I wanted to handle many responsibilities. Starting from the shoot to the creative aspect to deciding on the casting and costumes, I have been in-charge of everything. Actually, we could not hire costumes regularly from Mumbai. Hence we had to go to the local markets to buy costumes for one and all. It was a herculean task to take the unit along and get clothes for them, as everyone had varying moods. Having said this, I enjoyed my time handling all the actors and keeping them together. In fact, the cost stretched way beyond expectations, as we had to choose clothes according to the climate that prevailed. I salute Imtiaz and Chokkas for debuting as Producers with a challenging show like Nadaan Parinde.

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Handling 125 people outside Mumbai was indeed tough. We all used to get up by 4 am in the morning, as it took a one hour travel for us to reach the shoot spot. So a normal day used to start at 4 in the morning and ended only by 12 in the night. In fact, I have realized that many of our actors and our Producer Imtiaz have been sleeping only for 3-4 hours in a day for many months now. For me, this show has been a huge experience, a nightmare to say. But we carried on with our responsibilities only because of the dedication and hard work put in by our Producer Chokkas and Imtiaz. For us, this show is a huge hit considering the fact that we shot under the most trying situations. We had nearly 15 cars roaming all day that brought people from our unit to the work spot and take them back again. While shooting in the jungles, we had scary interactions with deadly creatures including snakes. In fact there was one sequence wherein Nikkhil Chadha was standing right in front of a huge snake. The Producers had hired dermatologists and doctors on a monthly basis. And the doctors used to come daily to the set to attend on cases. Also, finding people to work in the production was a tough task. Nobody was willing to come and take up jobs in the gruelling heat of Punjab.

Take us through the journey of setting up a show like Nadaan Parinde in Chandigarh.

We started working on the show in winters, wherein there used to be too much of fog. The sun would rise only at 10 am and just after 5 pm in the evening, it would get dark. So we set up the show in such a climate, wherein we used to get only few hours in a day for shoot. But the time we had set things up, we entered into the cold climate. And even after the producers provided thermals to all the unit members and actors, they used to shiver while delivering their dialogues. We used to make sure that we had fire placed all around the shooting area, so that all would feel warm. When we had to shoot night scenes, we had as many as 50 heaters in place to give the much-needed warmth to the unit members. So the beginning had been very challenging, but we sailed through as the Producers Imtiaz and Chokkas provided everything possible to make the shoot place good enough.

How did you manage to get the local actors for shoot?

Well, that was a major problem I faced. The problem was that the local actors in Punjab are not too very serious about their job. So they would simply call at the last minute and say they are not available to shoot. So we had to always cast 2-3 options for every small character and make sure we don't have any hiccups if someone does not turn up for shoot. Also, another challenge was that there are way too less character artistes available in Punjab.

We heard there were many in the crew who had asthma attacks?

Yes, the harvesting season in the village did give us huge problems. Owing to the weeds cut in the village during harvesting, many of our artistes suffered from asthma attacks. We could not shoot on the roads of the village, fearing this.

So how did the rainy season treat you in Chandigarh?

Well, the place did not get the expected rains this year. So the temperature rose to nearly 48-49 degrees. With our air-conditioners not able to support the heat, many actors fainted on the sets regularly. We used to have a doctor visiting our set daily. Also, due to insect bites, many in the crew suffered from skin diseases and allergies. Few of them needed hospitalization too, owing to the skin ailments they got. We found it very difficult to drive our vehicles in the roads of the village. There was a high risk of accident. In fact, once our car met with an accident when it fell into the muddy spot. The driver, make-up artist and hair dressed suffered from injuries in the accident.

Talk us through various other problems faced.

The main problem was the skin rashes and patches that actors got. Our female lead Gulki Joshi had various skin reactions. Since rain eluded the place, the humidity was very high. So while shooting a sequence, our actors used to get so drenched that we had to keep at least 3-4 costumes for every sequence ready so that we don't waste time drying the drenched clothes. The make-up artist used to get exhausted every day as he had to do the make-up over and over again, due to the humidity problem.

For me, it was very tough to keep actors motivated on the show. Everyone was so sick and tired of the sticky and humid conditions that they had various problems to face. Even though Imtiaz and Chokkas had provided all facilities as all the rooms in the place we stayed had air-conditioners, everyone used to face problems the moment they stepped out of their rooms. At the shoot spot, we used to keep nearly 100 litres of Tang ready for everyone to quench their thirst whenever they needed.

Also, when the rains did come, they brought a lot of flies flying around due to which many of our sequences needed retakes. In fact, we had to re-shoot some of our very important scenes because of the problems flies caused.

Overall, I have found this experience of being the Creative Producer on Nadaan Parinde an enriching experience, which has made me tougher.