Class intimacy coordinator reveals how intimate shower scene with Balli and Sharan was shot

Intimacy coordinator Aastha Khanna, who has worked on projects such as Gehraiyaan and Netflix’s Class, spoke about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making an intimate scene look authentic on screen. She also explained how intimate scenes were shot in Bollywood before professionals came into the picture. 

In an interview with Film Companion, Aastha explained that actors should never be completely nude while performing a scene of this nature, and added that if a viewer sees nudity on screen, prosthetics are often involved. She gave the example of how a prop was used on the Netflix show Class, when a character was required to masturbate on screen. Aastha said, “There is a scene with Sharan where he is masturbating while looking at Balli showering. The idea of this (the prop) was to kind of make him wear it around his waist so that he gets a grip and the masturbation movement could look authentic on camera.”

She gave examples of what she experienced on set before projects had intimacy coordinators “Once what happened was an actor said that he was in the flow so he ended up kissing some other actor without the actor’s consent.” Aastha also discussed how a director decided to include an intimate sequence without giving the performers any warning or time to prepare. She said, “The director woke up in the morning and decided there needed to be an intimacy scene, and so, at the end of the day they would shoot one. To give the performers enough time to think about it.” 

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Aastha explained that before intimacy coordinators became commonplace, directors would often just leave the actors to work out intimate scenes themselves, which would make the scenes repetitive. Otherwise, they’d cut to ‘post-coital’.