Why was Danny Boyle thanked in Dev D?

There was a surprise in store for cine goers the moment credits started rolling for Dev D. At the very beginning, there was a familiar name staring from the screen - Danny Boyle. The same man who is currently the most talked about in Bollywood due to his Oscar nominated film Slumdog Millionaire. So what's the connection between Dev D and Danny Boyle? What was he thanked for?

"I did not want to show drugs in the film. However, since the script demanded it, I had to find a way to do it. This is where Danny Boyle came in handy", says Anurag Kashyap, the director of Dev D which, after gaining all around critical acclaim is also finding a place in audience's hearts, "Instead of showing the drugs, I just showed Dev [Abhay Deol] going for them with the camera starting to tripping. This was further pretty well aided by Amit Trivedi's music."

It's the technique around the 'camera tripping away' that was taught by Danny to Anurag, due to which the director can't thank him enough. The story goes as follows.

"I was in London when Danny Boyle invited me for lunch. He told me about this still camera that he had got from Holland. The drug shots were all done using this still camera. It's such an amazing technique because I could show what's going on in the character's mind in a mere 10 seconds when otherwise it would have taken me 10 minutes."

He was careful though about not overdoing it and letting technology rule over narrative. "I have used it all very selectively. In fact the entire duration of sequences that show this effect is not more than 2 minutes. I had used this technique in Paanch as well but at that time since this camera was not available, there was quite some effort that had to be spent in post production. It became a lot easier in case of Dev D and that's the reason I decided to thank Danny Boyle", concludes Anurag.