Kalank is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language period drama film directed by Abhishek Varman and produced by Karan Johar, Sajid Nadiadwala and Fox Star Studios. It stars Madhuri Dixit, Sonakshi Sinha, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanjay Dutt.
The film demanded some really complex drone shots, from shooting in an indoor studio in film city for 10 days, navigating through some really tight spaces to add some dynamism, to shooting in some extreme weather conditions in Kargil. At 12,000ft AGL, we were fully prepared with high altitude propellers and battery warmers for the drone, but we didn’t realize how cold, cold could be. Operating the remote without gloves proved to be an almost impossible task, but the production at Dharma was fully prepared and was able to organize special gloves and jackets for us to be able to use our hands and fly to achieve some magical shots.
One of the crazy moments was when we had to climb a mountain for about a kilometer with Alia Bhatt to get an establishing shot. The lighting was perfect as the sun was setting, we just got into position, did our first dry run of the shot and director Abhishek Varman was very happy with what he saw. Suddenly the moment he called “Roll Camera”, there was a gust of wind and suddenly there was snow. We were losing light and the only option left was to fly in the snow, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get that shot again. And so we did, we too our first ever shot in the snow and made sure the production got what they needed!
I have never seen a more incredible set, the Dharma team and Amrita Mahal really went all out and made it so real, grand and spectacular - Rahat Kulshreshtha
