Portions of Lootera filmed in artificial snow

Sonakshi Sinha’s on-screen love story with Ranveer Singh in Lootera is now complete or almost complete. The love story, based on a O’Henry short-story, was shot entirely in artificial snow as the real snows of Kashmir proved to be unfriendly for shooting purposes. But now, the film’s team, that includes director Vikramaditya Motwane, has decided to shoot at least a small portion of the film in real snow. The initial plans of releasing the film by year-end have therefore been dropped so that one last attempt can be made to catch a portion of the film in real snow in Kashmir in December or January. Says a source close to the project, “It is really a matter of a good omen, you can’t make a film about love in the snow without real snow. The entire team thinks it would be inappropriate to make a film about a love story in a snow-scape without real snow. So although the shooting is now complete and no one can tell the film has been shot in artificial snow, thanks to the sophisticated snow-producing machine that was imported for the purpose, the film’s shooting would still be stalled until at least 10 minutes of the footage is shot in real snow.” Apparently Sonakshi and Ranveer have given their nod to the idea although the latter hurt his back badly while trying to shoot in the snow, the last time. Interestingly Sanjay Leela Bhansali shot the snowfall scenes in Black in artificial snow after it was impossible to shoot in real snow in Simla, He has advised his erstwhile assistant Vikramaditya Motwane to avoid real snow.