Beautifully recreating the retro era has become Balaji and MilanLuthria's forte.

After magnificently transporting the audience to the 80's Bombay in Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, it's turn to recreate the 80's Chennai in the forthcoming The Dirty Picture.

The keenly awaited multi-starrer is about the colourful, musical, and romantic journey of the 80's Tamil screen sensation, Silk Smitha, being played by Vidya Balan. Tusshar, Emraan Hashmi and Naseeruddin Shah play the men in her life.

Laughs Luthria, Right now we are in full Chennai mode. Wherever we look we see people dressed in lungis. Tamil posters adorn our walls, we start our day eating idlis to get into the mode. We bought books and watched Hindi and Tamil films of the 80's, and put that all together to arrive at an authentic colour palette.

The pre-monsoon showers in Mumbai initially made the producers of the Milan Luthria-directed The Dirty Picture jittery. However, the quick-thinking director, sensing more rain in the following days, planned his next scenes accordingly.

He shot for a few scenes using a rain machine so that if it were to rain in the coming days, he would be able to shoot conveniently and maintain continuity once the rain stopped. A rain machine is a low power hydraulic piece of equipment that creates artificial rain for use in scenes in films and television. So many times when you think you favorite stars are running around the trees in the rain it is actually a machine making it pour.

The Dirty Picture stars Vidya Balan, Tusshar, Emraan Hashmi and Naseeruddin Shah. Described as a musical it delves into the life of 80′s Tamil screen sensation, Silk Smitha.