With Neerja now declared tax free, more audiences will struggle to hold back tears as they witness Pan Am flight attendant Neerja Bhanot show tremendous valour during a hijack which would save the lives of over 300 passengers. It has already been heralded as Sonam Kapoor’s finest performance, and rightfully so. One of the key members of Ram Madhvani’s astutely directly film was production designer Aparna Sud. On Sud’s shoulders lay the responsibility to create the interiors of the aircraft in which all the emotional drama and violence unfolds. It wasn’t an easy task. “The biggest challenge was to get the entire plane ready in a short span of time,” says Sud in an email interview. “It took us 48 days to build the whole set from scratch.” A force of 250 labourers worked to ensure that the Boeing 747, a model now defunct, looked the real deal.

But before the set could be built, Sud says she referred “to every resource available online, including a website that was set up by ex-employees of Pan Am. We even referred to the technical flight manuals of Boeing 747.” Sud and her team replicated the cockpit to every detail and scale, calling in pilots and aircraft designers to check if there were any mistakes. Everything within the aircraft was functional, says Sud – “the doors, the intercom, the overhead cabins, the taps, the shutters,  and everything that you can imagine!” Added Ram Madhvani, “This was not a set. It was a real thing. If it wasn’t real, then you can’t feel it.” Of the 31 days spent shooting, 12 days were devoted to film the frantic passengers and capture the chaos in the aircraft.

Sud, whose earlier credits include Tevar and ABCD, called it “one of the biggest and most interesting projects” she has worked on. Sud added, “The pressure of knowing that no one in the history of Indian filmmaking has ever replicated an entire aircraft was a major driving factor. With this, came a huge sense of responsibility. The thought of working on the heroic story of Neerja Bhanot gave me an immense sense of pride. In the end, it was all worth it.”

Made on a budget of Rs 21 crore which include publicity and advertising, the film with earnings of Rs 32 plus crore is already a hit. Sud has already moved on. She just finished a Hollywood film, Heartbeats, directed by Duane Adler.