Virat Kohli’s life-changing incident inspired ‘Test’: S Sashikanth

Architect-turned-producer S Sashikanth speaks about his directorial debut Test, how being an architect helped in filmmaking and reuniting with the ‘Bramayugam’ team for the upcoming Pranav Mohanlal-starrer

When he watched Mani Ratnam’s 1986 classic Mouna Ragam, when he was just a little over ten, S Sashikanth was mesmerised by the beauty of what the filmmaker, along with art director Thota Tharani, had imagined. “I still remember all the details...the ten-foot main entrance, the spiral staircase, the wooden jaali, the circular courtyard, and the furniture. That whole film was beautiful.” Sashikanth decided then he would either become an architect or a filmmaker. As one could imagine, becoming an architect was much easier than becoming a filmmaker. After graduating (he had by then assisted Tharani in Shankar’s Mudhalvan), Sashikanth approached Mani Ratnam for an internship. “But he said, ‘You have already become an architect, why don’t you take that route.’”

As advised, Sashikanth went ahead with architecture, establishing his company Space Scape with his wife. When the cinema bug bit Sashikanth again, he was 35, “too old to become an assistant director,” and so instead, he chose to become a film producer — because “Why not?” After all, it was a stint that could let him learn filmmaking hands-on. And thus began the journey of Sashikanth’s immensely successful production banner, YNot Studios.

And now, after more than a decade, after producing 20+ films, the architect-turned-producer has finally realised his directing dreams, having helmed the upcoming Netflix drama, Test, starring R Madhavan, Nayanthara, Siddharth and Meera Jasmine.

Along with Netflix India boss Monika Shergill, Sashikanth speaks about how architecture fuelled his filmmaking.

Excerpts:

Even in architecture, you become your first audience. A design is a story you tell yourself. So, even for cinema, you need a designer mentality; you can’t take the all-creative or an all-scientific route. I look at films like how you design a house. It’s something that is inherently yours, but you are always doing it for somebody else. So I saw myself as a storyteller who could look at filmmaking from a design perspective to tell a story.

Yes. When I first came in, the industry was hooked on starting a project through narrations. But as an architect, I always looked at plans as a way to convey all my creative energies. You have to communicate to your clients that even intangible creative things could have a scientific document. So right from the first project, we directed that every project be looked at, understood and curated through script and development.