Aditya Gupta: Create people pods on set for safety

Aditya Gupta, in charge of safety measures on Dhamaka, Ram Setu and Darlings sets, discusses challenges of bio-bubble shoot, and executing ever-evolving sanitisation practices

As shoots have resumed in bio-bubbles post the second lockdown, the primary concern on a film set has been safety. Many projects—including Dhamaka and Sherni—have relied on Aditya Gupta for their health and safety management. The former assistant director started a company called Life First, which takes care of sanitisation needs on set. “We do everything, from formulating SOPs to location analysis and pointing out venue loopholes in scripts. Besides sanitisation and testing, we handle PPE management, waste management, tie-ups with hospitals and creation of bio-bubbles,” he says.

Gupta was supervising the safety norms of Akshay Kumar’s Ram Setu, whose shoot came to a halt in Mumbai after the leading man and 45 people tested positive in April. “There was such a hue and cry about Ram Setu. At the beginning of the second wave, a lot of crew members tested positive, but we had caught it ahead of time and the shoot was suspended immediately,” he defends.

Aditya Gupta 

Gupta has 15 projects on his plate, including Alia Bhatt’s 'Darlings' and Riteish Deshmukh’s 'Plan A/Plan B'. The safety norms laid down on these sets follow those adopted during the filming of Kartik Aaryan’s 'Dhamaka', which had zero cases. “We create people pods, where only certain sections are allowed to break social distancing rules. That way, if someone tests positive, we don’t have to quarantine the whole crew. For instance, we break the lighting team into zones so that if one zone has a case, the other can replace it and the work continues. Doing two RT-PCR tests is mandatory to ensure we don’t have a false negative.”

Akshay Kumar featured on the poster of Ram Setu

With crew strength exceeding 150, Gupta says movie sets require more vigilance because people can be negligent sometimes. “The issues arise when people in the bubble break the norms. They want to chill and have a drink together. To combat that, we deploy security on each floor of the hotel we are staying in. Another issue is daily-wage workers often pop a pill and show up for work [despite showing symptoms] because they haven’t earned enough in the past few months. We have had to ask producers to have a strong discussion that they can’t put others at risk, and assure them that they will be paid.”

Also Read: New speed in the new normal! Kartik Aaryan wraps up Dhamaka in just 10 days

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