Karanvir Bohra on Directorial Debut 'Bhanwar': Next Season, I Will Go Deeper

Actor Karanvir Bohra has made his directorial debut with new Zee5 web series Bhanwar. The sci-fi show streaming since August 17, explores the world of time traveling.

“I started my career as an assistant director so I had an idea of shot breakdown. I have been doing a lot of shot breakdowns since a long time, even in my shows.I used to see the other directors directing, and learnt what goes behind a scene. I read a lot of books on screenplays and stories. All the experiences of these twenty years have really helped me create this.I am really proud that I managed this. For me it is a huge achievement," he said.

Directing has also changed Karanvir as an actor. “Now, I look at acting more responsibly. I don’t just look at a script as an actor, I look at a script in terms of the entire content, as to how it’s going to look. I won’t take it for granted at all now, whether it is my acting abilities, or my directing abilities. As an actor you always need a challenge with every role. And directing was that new role for me,” he said.

The show was shot entirely amid the coronavirus lockdown. The crew consisted of six people including Karanvir, wife Teejay Sidu, Priya Banerjee, Mantra and their cinematographer.

Karanvir credits his experience in theatre for helping him and his team carry out the intrinsic process of shooting a series. “This is why I directed it, because there was nobody else to do so. Otherwise I would have approached a director to do it. Because of this we thought let’s create something and I will manage it. I will manage to shoot it and make it look good. It won’t be a shoddy product and it would be up to the mark. With God’s grace, I managed it.”

“I am a major sci-fi fan and this gave me the opportunity to tap the genre. Otherwise, I would not be able to sell this concept easily to any platform because everybody would be a little skeptical. They would say, ‘we don’t know, it is too vague, the audience won’t like it.’ But I realised that the audience are loving it, they want more. In fact, the next season I will go deeper," he concluded.