Sriram Raghavan has made a career out of crafting thrillers. But there’s one piece of advice from his first producer, Ram Gopal Varma, that has stayed with him since his 2004 directorial debut feature Ek Hasina Thi. “Sriram, just shoot it convincingly,” Varma told him while he was scratching his head over how to pull off the climactic twist and change in setting of the film. Sriram divulged many such anecdotes to demonstrate the art of crafting a thriller during the SCREEN Academy Masterclass at Whistling Woods International, Mumbai.

SCREEN Academy is a pioneering not-for-profit initiative launched by The Indian Express Group and SCREEN to identify, nurture, and showcase the next generation of Indian filmmakers and storytellers.

Ek Hasina Thi

“Real-life logic takes over in your early films. ‘This is not logical,’ you tell yourself,” said Sriram Raghavan, addressing dozens of filmmaking students during the masterclass.…