Ankur Tewari: Didn’t want it to be like other films on infidelity

Raise your hands if you like us had a second look at the trailer of Shakun Batrarsquos Gehraiyaan only to listen to its balletic music again Sound designer Ankur Tewari mdash responsible for monitoring the score and soundtrack artistes for the making of a cohesive theme mdash discusses breathing life into the Deepika Padukone Ananya Panday and Siddhant Chaturvedi starrerEdited excerpts from the interviewWhat was your initial discussion with Shakun about the filmrsquos musicWe were sure that the music should not be mainstream A lot of films on infidelity have been made and they have had a certain kind of sound attached to them We wanted to approach this with a new sound Having said that we first paid heed to what the script was saying The film is about a group of young people who are going through a transactional relationship when it come to love We thought about the kind of music that these guys would listen to All the songs in the film are in terms of a score None has been lipsynced to We thought about the music that would be in their playlist and then dug deeper into each characterDid you ask the actors what they listened toNo But I got sneaky I started noticing their Instagram pages mdash songs they were posting about or sharing on stories Since I have worked with Siddhant in Gully Boy I know the kind of music he listens to I was also thinking about the characters This film is very strong even on paper So when you have access to a script where the character is so well defined itrsquos easy to work accordingly Kabir and Savera are two musicians who have worked on the score to give it a distinct sound Their music is precisely the kind that these characters would consumeWhen you have such a fine understanding of creating music best suited for a script how do you navigate filmmakersrsquo demands to create a commercial score even if the story doesnrsquot require itUnlike in the indie space where you write as you desire in films every one is catering to the script You are committed to that Different scripts have different needs and some of them need a commercial treatment If that is not done then what is the difference between your approach towards an independent song and film music Each soundscape has a different colour and that can be niche mainstream or an entirely new genre In this film for instance a lot of the music is inspired by French music The song needs to pull you further into the film not pull you out of it with a sound that doesnrsquot fitHow often do you end up changing your work after seeing the first cutWhen I saw the rough cut I noticed that there were places where we were going off especially as far as Deepikarsquos performance is concerned She is such a powerful performer Also actors put a lot of work into understanding the characters So when you learn of a character on paper and then see how the actor has pulled it off you start understanding their perspective I had to move away from the music and lyrics that I had etched in my mind The brief that I gave Kausar Munir lyricist before I saw the rough draft was different from the one I gave her after it Our initial approach was a bit younger but the characters were more complex We had to tweak it to suit that