Omung Kumar reveals the creative inspiration behind Temptation Island's set design

Temptation Island India is gearing up for its highly anticipated premiere on November 3rd on JioCinema. This Indian adaptation of a globally renowned format challenges the strength of romantic relationships as couples choose to part ways temporarily and reside on opposite ends of a captivating tropical paradise. As the premiere date approaches, the sneak peek of the captivating Villa has already piqued the viewers' curiosity. Notably, the Villa's artistic design is the brainchild of Omung Kumar, who recently got in an exclusive conversation with India Forums and shared insights about his creative inspiration and more.

Can you describe the creative inspiration behind the set design for Temptation Island? Like what were the main sources of inspiration while creating the show's distinctive environment? 

The distinctive environment is, yes, there's love in the air, but let someone come and tempt them not to love the person they love. So it's love. It's a beautiful island that you're going to go. You're going to have your lovers with, without, I mean not with you, but the tempters are gonna tempt you. So what do I do? There are specific things that they told us was that we are gonna have two huge villas, one for the girls and one for the guys. Now, how do I differentiate between them and how beautiful both can look? So the question was, OK, which place are we shooting? It's sort of set that I'm making. I'm redressing a place and making it beautiful for our location. Obviously, the bungalows that we chose had a nice, distinctive look to them. The white bungalow went on, went for the females, and the charcoal bungalow went to the males, you know, but yet, I mean that those are normal bungalows. How do I change the bungalow era? So when the brief came to me, we thought, OK, every room has to have a distinctive characteristic quality to it. So I said, let me name them. Everybody said yes, definitely, because by naming them, the cameraman gets a proper visual, OK, the central area or the emotion area or the fire area, and everything fell into place. Just like, you know, in one chakka. 

There also I got this idea just went, we were going for the Ricky on the jetty into Alibaug and everybody just jumped on it. So it's a fantastic area, and it helped me to design also. So now, when you talk about emotion, OK, what can the wallpaper be, or what can the background be? And you know, this is the pink zone, so everything which is light pink and pastel shades went into the female house and everything which is dark black, magenta or shocking pink thing when you took the male side of the thing. So this is how we differentiate colour with the whole series as such, you know, and it helped us also every group has a different quality. It looks very pretty when we have pastel shades like lilacs and fuschia. The light pinks and the curtains that we've printed look so pretty outside. And you know, it's like a translucent curtain that keeps on flying because the next door is just the beach, so everything flies, and it makes it more romantic as such. That's how we've done, designed everything in the female house. 

For the male house, the colour of the walls is red charcoal, and we also got the deep colours as in, like you know, fire. If fire, then what will be the background? Then there is essential, then there is hotness, and there's hot stuff. These are things that we've named and designed accordingly in each and every room. Then there are like millions of paintings which are put everywhere in the corridors and the passage in the steps that we go up. That's how we differentiate it. And here, as you know, the pools, there are two pools in both places. So obviously, the pool becomes a nice place where people will hang around, so what will be beside it, which shimmers in the daytime, looks like a nice silver tickly shimmer that shimmers with the sun and at night, it becomes a very dark pink which gets lit up. So that's how we have differentiated both places.

You've worked on shows like Bigg Boss and other major productions. How much time and effort did it take to plan the set design for Temptation Island, and how is it different from Bigg Boss?

Big Boss is a standard format where we get some ideas, then follow them, and we go with the creators to tell them that this is what the idea is. Here, the idea is a formatted idea we've seen abroad and how to make it beautiful. The first season, and we're going ahead with what the template was abroad. In the upcoming season, we'll go a little matter and crazier. This is a temptation island, Island and what would the Island represent and how beautiful can you make it so that people also, you know, look nice and then that is like, so it's an entirely different ball game. 

BB is different, and Temptation Island is different. Yes, we're staying together. That's the only commonness. But here, the theme was bigger, and it had to, you know, had to be designed in such a way that the format can get justice by the sets that we've created. It took us about a month or so to make this place up and design and redesign the whole place. That's how this happens. Bigg Boss is a larger thing. It's the 17th season, and we've done much of this. So there is something else to this that was a single piece, but here we have outdoors, we have extruders, we have some light, we have the beaches. So, it's a larger scale to it. BB is a confined area in one piece. House is everything for that. So these are the two different shapes. 

How do you believe the interior design of the houses sets the mood for a show focused on emotions and relationships?

Oh, the walls will talk, and they will fall in love every single time, and they will replace their partners every single time. This means if on the wall only it's written 'Sensual', they can't do anything else they had to do this way. So if fire is written on the wall, then fire is necessary. If emotion is written and the bugger is not getting any emotion, then people will say you don't have any emotion that you are on. So these are generally like all my walls will talk; Vanita is very particular, like, you know, love which colours excite you, which colour becomes, you know, gets the passion in you and all. So that's how she designs everything, you know. So that's how both of these houses, the villas that we created. 

Temptation Island has a very dedicated fan base who closely follows each season internationally; how have you kept the Indian aspect intact for the first? How is it unique? 

Everyone makes love no matter whether they make love there or here. It's completely the same thing. Love is like it has no boundaries. Be it Hindi or English, it is just the same. There you get cheat here also the same So there's nothing differentiable. We didn't want to Indianise. It's an island. It's temptation; it's beautiful. Everything that you like abroad you like over here, you know you've done full justice to the main show, and it's like from the cushions to the rugs to the makeup rooms to the bonfire nights out, and all everything is to the show. And yes, we also do the same thing. So I didn't want to make it Indian, Indian as such. It's an international show. It looks like an international show.

So, what would be your favourite room setting and why?

Rooms are beautiful, yes, but in front of Female House, there is a beautiful tree beneath which we have kept a huge dining area, and there are like billions of printed lamps hanging from the thing that looks very pretty, very dreamy. And it's like, even one should have the same thing at the house, so that is my favourite place out, obviously and from there, you can see this whole bungalow and the curtains flying. So it's really dreamy. So I like something like that.