Rasika Dugal says focus pullers are her biggest concern when she enters a film set
Actress Rasika Dugal says the most important thing she looks for on set is a skilled focus puller. Speaking about Delhi Crime 3, she explained how technical teamwork often determines performance quality and shared a story about on-set collaboration.
Mumbai: Actress Rasika Dugal, who has been promoted up the ranks in the recently released 3rd season of the International Emmy-winning streaming show ‘Delhi Crime’, has shared what she looks for when she enters a set.
The actress spoke with IANS during the promotional campaign of the 3rd season of her OTT show, and shared how she balances technical aspects of filmmaking with creativity. The actress said that after entering a set, she enquires about the focus pullers, the ones who make sure that the actors stay in focus during shot taking.
Rasika told IANS, “When I enter a set, I’m like, ‘I hope they’ve got a really good focus puller’, that is really my prayer at that time. And that’s why the technical aspects are so important. Some directors make it really easy for you to ignore the fact that this job is technically difficult. And some technicians make it very easy for you. They don’t let you remember that the camera is here and that you have to hit a mark”.
However, there are many who are very particular about the technical aspects. She further mentioned, “And one has to work in those situations also. In my humble assessment of both of them, for a good performance, I think only the one which ignores the technicals and the team, the director and the technical team allow you to do that work really well for me. There are some sets where I don’t even know who the focus puller is. That guy has never come out and said, ‘This is your mark, please stand here’. You move a bit here and there, and he will find you at the point that the director wants you in”.
“So it amazes me how collaborative this effort is. Just a quick example, there was this show that I had done, and in the last scene I had to bawl, if that scene hadn’t worked, the rest of the character wouldn’t have. That was a track shot in which for half a second the focus went off. I did another take for it, and they had a safety take for it because the first one had that little glitch. But it was just not as magical as the first one. But the director kept the first one. And the DOP is still very, very pissed with him. He was like, ‘You showed poor quality of my work to the audience’. Sometimes it happens, you have to compromise on your own work for someone else’s because at the end of the day, it’s a collaboration”, she added.
‘Delhi Crime 3’ is available to stream on Netflix.
