Elaborating more on the receé process, Anubhuti revealed to Times News Network that because Allahabad University had Victorian structures, it fit well in accordance with her script. She shared, “We wanted to shoot in Bhopal and surrounding areas, but COVID just cut our access to these campuses. Madhya Pradesh has interesting structures and institutes, but we couldn’t procure permission. In fact, we had finalised a location in Indore, which fell through at the last minute because of a surge in COVID cases on the campus. We had originally written the film to be set in Lucknow. We had also conducted recce in parts of Uttar Pradesh like Kannauj, Lucknow and the surrounding areas.”
She further stated that since her story was initially conceptualized around King George Medical College campus in Lucknow, there was no other place as apt as Allahabad University, “Allahabad University had that Victorian structure which we had loved. I wanted something like that since the epicentre of our story originally was the King George Medical College campus in Lucknow. So, we decided to shoot at the Allahabad University campus,” she said.
Previously, the bustling campus has been a shooting spot for Tigmanshu Dhulia’s critically acclaimed film ‘Haasil’ that was released back in 2003. It’s been 20 years and no other film shooting had taken place till now except Doctor G. Anubhuti disclosed, “The university had not seen a film shoot in 20 years. Haasil (directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia) is the last film shot there. After that, the university stopped allowing shoots, so Doctor G is the first to have entered the place in years.”
Adding to this, she shared, “It took a lot of convincing, plenty of paperwork and written assurances that nothing would be damaged or changed on the campus. We had to identify the rooms and assure them that we wouldn’t make any structural changes, harm the stone walls, floors and ceilings. We made so many rounds of the place. When the new Vice Chancellor stepped in, we got our permission because she was cool with what we wanted to do, and she wanted to do good for the university, too. Some of the rooms were beautiful and had been unused for years. Like there were sequences shot in an old library that had unused furniture piled up to the ceiling.”
The Junglee Pictures production Doctor G will tell the story of the titular character, Uday Gupta who is the only male student in the Department of Gynaecology. His character who is hesitant in pursuing a specialization like that would find himself embroiled in confusion, chaos and quirky comic situations. The film is slated to release on October 14.
