Street Lights

Cinematographer Shamdat is marking his directorial debut.[3] Eager to direct a film, he watched many short films, and one of them led him into contacting its maker Fawaz Mohamed. After Shamdat told his idea to Fawaz, Fawaz developed the content into a story within a week.[4] In 2016, Shamdat narrated the story to Mammootty at the sets of The Great Father, which he agreed to act and to produce.[5] Originally scripted in Malayalam, the story featuring a certain Tamil-speaking characters and portions to be set in Tamil Nadu prompted the makers to make the film in Tamil also.[6] Shamdat's initial idea of different production of film, as first in Malayalam and Tamil thereafter, was advanced to the simultaneous filming of both versions, since Mammootty was ready to finance also the Tamil version. Dialogues for Tamil version were written by Shamdat himself, while Malayalam dialogues along with script are credited to Fawaz Mohamed, who is also debutant.[5][4][7][8] Shamdat does not include the film in any specific genre such as action, crime or suspense, and wants to call it an "entertainment thriller".[9]

The principal photography began on 24 March 2017 in Kochi, planned to be completed in a single schedule. Shamdat's brother Sadat Sainudeen was the cinematography.[10] Mammootty had allotted his 20 days of date.[11][6] An accident occurred during filming of a fight sequence held at Mattancherry, causing Vishnu Unnikrishnan an injury to his right hand wrist. He was prescribed two weeks' rest by the doctors and, subsequently, was replaced by Dharmajan Bolgatty.[12][13] Lijomol Jose was offered a role by Shamdat during the shooting of her film Kattappanayile Rithwik Roshan.[14][15] In Tamil version, a prominent role is played by Prithvi Rajan, who is placed at the way of a probe conducted by Mammootty, with few collaboration scenes between them, while he also leads a romantic comedy track, paired with Lijomol's character. Rajan's father, Pandiarajan, also plays an important role.[16][8] Stunt choreographer Stunt Silva was cast for the antagonist, whose real looks and style were retained for the character.[17]

In the case of filming, Tamil scenes were shot first, followed by Malayalam.[16] In order to minimize the production cost and expedite the filming, only perfected shots based on finalized script were taken, and big monitors and crew were avoided. Filming was done with camera hidden at places like bus stands. Sound design was by Renganaath Ravee; sounds taken from day and night were used in the film.[18] Tamil version is based in Chennai.[8] According to the director, both versions were treated differently, in such a way that Malayalam features more humour while Tamil a serious narrative.[19] Filming of both films completed in 35 days.[5] In November 2017, the makers also planned to dub the film into Telugu.[20][21][22][2] Mammootty himself dubbed in three languages.[4]