Palki Malhotra has oodles of experience in the creative line and has helmed many big and successful TV shows. Powerful in her thoughts, perfect in her presentation, Palki comes from a school of thought where hard work and perseverance are the only attributes that will be remembered.
Palki has been busy over the last few months, creatively helming the ALTBalaji series LSD – Love, Scandal & Doctors. The series which is gripping to the core has been well-received and has been doing well with good word of mouth spreading around.
In a candid chat with IWMBuzz.com, Palki talks of her experience working on the series.
Excerpts:
How was the experience of working on the series LSD – Love, Scandal & Doctors?
LSD’s story is based on a bunch of 24-year-old interns who have just got out of medical school and want to up their game to become doctors, making the competition and challenges real. There was a lot we wanted to capture in terms of the real emotions in a space like this. Therefore it became even more challenging for us to portray the true side of the working space, the hospital mainly that is being shown. There was also a certain look and feel that we wanted to get right for the show, so we experimented with the colors, the color correction, the set design. So if you see it’s not very rainbow at all, as it’s got a very specific deep tone, there were no pop colors, the lingo was also strongly worked upon. For example, Siddharth Menon is not a Delhiite, but he had to work on his accent to sound like one, in turn making it quite a challenge for us to work on his character which was slightly more layered than the others.
How tough was it to deal with intrigue related to the field of medicine?
The murder on the show was a medical murder and not an accident or a stab, for which a lot of research was put into how it would be executed. Quite a few medical technicalities had to be taken care of while shooting, which were integral parts of the storyline and had to be emphasized upon. There was a panel of doctors present with us while scripting to get the medical terms correct, surgeons were present to guide us while shooting scenes, numerous workshops planned with our actors to help them get a feel of the medical world, and a lot of more medical nuances were taken care of to give LSD the exact feel that we wanted to. What we also mainly wanted to highlight was the internship period which is the most competitive one for any intern wanting to become a doctor, as the positions are fewer and the candidates are more, making it a very competitive space. Hence shooting LSD was altogether very unique and one-of-a-kind experience and it gave us all some great learning while putting together the show.
What is the USP of LSD?
Also, the human relationship of friendship forever is very well established in Love, Scandal & Doctors. Special emphasis has been laid on the brotherhood that brews between two best friends & how the real-world impacts the friendship where 2 are a part of the same rat race. These things make the narrative very real, with this there is this whole thriller aspect that keeps you going. Youth in general across the globe are more invested in crime thrillers & they love to rack their brains & solve the crime while watching the show. ….
How was it to make the young blood in the series connect with their roles?
What the young blood is looking for is something real. They are done with lies, they are done with an antiseptic version of narratives that they have been seeing for a while now. I think they are now ready to accept the true reflection of our society & that is why it was easy for us to connect with the audience, the youth, to connect with people who do not have this attitude as opposed to people who have turned around & told me that ‘Hey listen, Doctors do not talk like that.’ they are all 35-year-olds & beyond. Whereas the young blood has accepted the idea of these 24-year-old something’s, these interns trying very hard to be doctors in the world of competition.
Who according to you are good finds as actors?
The acting on screen is always superficial unless the actors don’t believe in the character.
Our surprise package was Pulkit Makhol, not many thought he could deliver as it was his first but he stood out brilliantly. We worked on his strength & weaknesses. As a director & also a showrunner, we need to keep in mind these things to work around them.
Siddharth Menon was brilliant too, I remember taking his audition to Ekta & he was instantly chosen. What happens most of the time is, you take these auditions for the first time, your bosses don’t really choose people, they make you work harder. I couldn’t find a better Vik. Again Tanya Sachdeva is a girl who is completely the opposite of Sara but for her to get into the role was a challenge in itself, she wouldn’t understand the grey aspects of a character, but she played it fantastically. Even Ishaan shone out. For him to get into the competitive zone at the same time, needing to look innocent but have that rough interior was a very difficult thing to do. Punit Pathak was a big surprise package, nobody thought he would pull off a cop so well.
Do you think casting of these young actors was one of the best targets achieved in LSD?
I’d take pride in the fact that casting these actors was a mammoth of a task. We were really worried about the right actor to fit into the right shoes of the characters because this is one show where you couldn’t have gone wrong with the grammar of the show, they have to look like interns who are educated and not just pick up anyone who is popular or has a million following on Instagram. It wasn’t about hiring those people & making our jobs easy, even when you know a certain set of fans will come in & watch the show. It was challenging but fun, we must have changed our casting directors multiple times, ultimately the faces that we got were brilliant. All of these actors are personally very different people, so I would give the credit to me & my team for taking that pain to train them into these characters. Even the actors took workshops for a month & a half; it was not just a medical workshop but for us to get them into the skin of the character, to understand the lingo, the medical jargons because they are so difficult.
How has the response been for LSD?
The response for LSD has been fantastic. The reason we all were overwhelmed was that we were told that this is not a massy typical show on the web. We had to face that kind of criticism. We were very apprehensive about it, but we totally believed in the show. When we read favorable reviews 2 days into the release, that’s when we realized that those critics who only review series to bash about them have been speaking well about us, maybe it will do well. It’s great on IMDB, we don’t pay for it. I think it’s 9.6 & which is fantastic with the kind of clutter in shows we have in the digital space now. This is just an intelligent show doing well with no masala, it neither was hardcore on romance, neither on action. ‘Dimaag lagana padta hai yeh show dekhne’ basically so it’s been great.
You have devoted so many years to creativity in TV space and now web space. What’s the next natural progression for you?
I am a storyteller, I like to execute what exactly has been written on the script. The reason why I go on the floor, day in and day out & be there is to ensure that it needs to be executed the way the writer has visualized it, irrespective of who has written it. I am a storyteller primarily, so in all honesty, I don’t care about TV & the web. I wanted to do OTT purely because it is so much fun. You finish the project in about a span of 4-5 months & then you move on to the next. Unfortunately TV is not in that space right now. It is great to make a show, put it on air & move on. It’s not just TV & films, there was a time I’ve even directed a music video, that’s fun too because you have to tell a story in about 2-3 minutes. It has a huge creative high as well. I would love to do something like that. It is challenging to tell a story with so many mediums available today. I want to experiment with multiple mediums.