tank's water often became murky because the mud would rise to the top, forcing production to constantly empty and refill it. due to this hindrance, the scene took eight hours to film. the film's next sequence involved ishaan playing with two dogs. to compensate for the "absolutely petrified" safary, most joint shots used a body double, though other portions integrated close-up shots of the actor. ishaan's nightmare—he becomes separated from his mother at a train station and she departs on a train while he is trapped in a crowd—was filmed in mumbai on a permanent railway-station set. to work around the train set piece's immobility, production placed the camera on a moving trolley to create the illusion of a departing train. for the sequences related from the mother's point of view—shot from behind the actress—chopra stood on a trolley next to a recreated section of the train's door. all the school sequences were filmed on location. the production team searched for a mumbai school with an "oppressive" feel to establish the "heaviness of being in a metropolitan school", and eventually chose st. xavier's school. as the school is situated along a main road filming took place on weekends, to minimise the background noise, but an early scene in which ishaan is sent out of the classroom was filmed on the day of the mumbai marathon. the production staff placed acrylic sheets invisible to the naked eye on the classroom windows to mask the sounds of nearby crowds and helicopters. new era high school served as ishaan's boarding school. the change of setting was a "breath of fresh air" for the production crew, who moved from ishaan's small house in mysore colony, chembur to the "vast, beautiful environs" of panchgani. production relied on stock footage for the brief scene of a bird feeding its babies. khan carefully selected a clip to his liking, but learned three weeks before the film's release that the footage was not available in the proper format. with three days to replace it or else risk delaying the release, khan made do with what he could find. he says that he "cringes" every time he sees it. children real schoolchildren participated throughout the movie's filming. khan credited them with the film's success, and was reportedly very popular with them. furthermore, khan placed a high priority on the day-to-day needs of his child actors, and went to great lengths to attend to them. the production staff made sure that the students were never idle, and always kept them occupied outside of filming. new era faculty coordinator douglas lee thought the experience not only helped the children to learn patience and co-operation, but also gave them a better understanding of how they should behave towards children like ishaan who have problems in school. because filming at new era high school occurred during the winter holiday, those portraying ishaan's classmates gave up their vacation to participate. to fill in the campus background, students from nearby schools were also brought in. a total of 1,500 children were used for wide-shots of the film's art-fair climax; medium shots only required 400 students. new to acting, the children often made errors such as staring into the camera, and khan resorted to unorthodox methods to work around their rookie mistakes. for example, an early scene in the film featured a school assembly; khan wanted the students to act naturally and to ignore the principal's speech, but recognised that this would be a difficult feat with cameras present. first assistant director sunil pandey spoke continuously in an attempt to "bore the hell out of ", and they eventually lost interest in the filming and behaved normally. a later scene involved nikumbh enlightening his class about famous people with dyslexia, and the children's responses to his speech were the last portion to be filmed. having already spent 3–4 days hearing the dialogue the children's reactions were "jaded". khan opted to film them while he recited a tale, and manipulated his storytelling to achieve the varying spontaneous reactions. the following scene had the children playing around a nearby pond. horrified when he learned that the water was 15 feet (4.6 m) deep, khan recruited four lifeguards in case a child fell in. khan found it important that the audience connect the film to real children, and had pandey travel throughout india filming documentary-style footage of children from all walks of life. those visuals were integrated into the end credits. art and animation while claymation has been used in indian television commercials, the film's title sequence—a representation of ishaan's imagination—marked its first instance in a bollywood film. khan gave claymation artist dhimant vyas free rein over the various elements. the storyboarding took one and a half months and the shooting required 15 days. the "3 into 9" sequence, in which ishaan delves into his imagination to solve a math problem, was originally conceived as a 3d animation. halfway through its creation, however, khan felt it was not turning out as he had envisioned it. khan scrapped the project and hired vaibhav kumaresh, who hand-drew the scene as a 2d animation. artist samir mondal composed ishaan and nikumbh's art-fair watercolor paintings. he held a workshop with the schoolchildren, and incorporated elements from their artwork into ishaan's. mondal also instructed khan on a painter's typical mannerisms and movements. gupte created the rest of ishaan's artwork and assistant art director veer nanavati drew ishaan's flipbook. the art department's designs for ishaan's school notebooks disappointed khan, who had familiarized himself with dyslexic writing. using his left hand, khan instead wrote it himself. musical sequences the musical sequence of "jame raho" establishes the characters of the four members of ishaan's family; for example, the father is hardworking and responsible, and yohaan is an "ideal son" who does all the right things. a robotic style of music overlaps most of the sequence—this is mirrored by the machine-like morning routines of the mother, father, and yohaan—but changes for ishaan's portion to imply that he is different from the rest. this concept is furthered by speed ramping and having the camera sway with the music to create a distinct style. the twilight scenes of "maa" were a particular issue for the production crew. because the specific lighting only lasted ten to fifteen minutes a day, the scenes took nearly ten evenings to film. production at one time considered having a child singing, but ultimately deemed it too over the top and felt it would connect to more people if sung by an adult. shankar initially performed the song as a sample—they planned to replace him with another singer—but production eventually decided that his rendition was best. the trio of shankar mahadevan (right), ehsaan noorani (middle), and loy mendonsa (left) composed most of the film's music. ishaan's truancy scene—he leaves school one day after realizing that his mother has not signed his failed math test—originally coincided with the song "kholo kholo," but khan did not believe it worked well for the situation. in his opinion, the accompanying song should focus on what a child wants—to be free—and be told from the first-person perspective instead of "kholo kholo"'s second person. when khan took over as director, he opted to use "mera jahan"—a song written by gupte—and moved "kholo kholo" to the art fair. viewers of test screenings were divided over the truancy scene. half thoroughly enjoyed it but the rest complained that it was too long, did not make sense, and merely showed "touristy" visuals of mumbai. khan nevertheless kept the scene, because he "connected deeply" with it and felt that it established ishaan's world. shiamak davar choreographed the dance sequence of "bum bum bole," and was given free rein over its design. he had intended to use 40 students from his dance school, but khan did not want trained dancers. davar gave the children certain cues and a general idea of what to do, but left the style and final product up to them to avoid a choreographed appearance. time constraints meant that while khan was busy filming "bum bum bole," ram madhvani took over as director for "bheja kum". the latter sequence, containing a "fun-filled" song of rhythmic dialogue, allowed the audience to perceive how ishaan sees the world and written languages. it was intended to represent "a young boy's worst nightmare, in terms of ... the worst thing that he can think of"; madhvani based the visual concept on his son's fear of "creepy-crawlies" such as cockroaches, dragonflies, and lizards. tata elxsi's visual computing labs made the creatures out of the english alphabet and numbers, although khan insisted they include the hindi alphabet as not all the audience would be familiar with english. the chalkboard writing's transformation into a snake was included to surprise the audience and "end the song on a high note." in writing the song "taare zameen par," lyricist prasoon joshi followed the theme of "however much you talk about children, it's not enough." every line throughout the song describes children, and only one repeats: "kho naa jaaye yeh / taare zameen par" ("let us not lose these / little stars on earth"). the song is mostly set to the annual day performance by the developmentally disabled children of tulips school. actual students from tulips school and saraswati mandir participated, and were filmed over a period of five days. the sequence originally featured numerous dance performances, but was trimmed down when test audiences found it too long. a song accompanying the scene in which ishaan's mother is watching home videos of her son was also cut, and replaced with background music after test audiences expressed their opposition to yet another song. background music "it is easier when you have to create a song like "move your body" in johnny gaddaar. there you can add a lot of nonsense in the recording studio. on the other hand, something like taare zameen par requires melody to hold center stage. there is a different level of energy that you have to bring in composing for such different soundtrack as we had to be subdued yet effective in taare zameen par." – shankar mahadevan timing and other aspects are usually planned when scoring a film, but khan chose to take a more improvised approach. instead of using a studio, he and the trio shankar–ehsaan–loy recorded it at khan's home in panchgani, to clear their heads and not be in the mindset of the city. as they watched the film, khan pointed out when he wanted music to begin and of what type. ehsaan noorani noted that this strategy allowed the score to have a "spontaneity to it." different styles of background music were used to convey certain things. for example, a guitar is played when ishaan is tense or upset, sometimes with discordant notes. the music of the opening scene—the recurring "ishaan's theme," which represents the character's peace of mind—overpowers the background noise to show that ishaan is lost in his own world; the noise becomes louder after he snaps back to reality. but the scene in which nikumbh explains dyslexia to ishaan's family took the opposite approach. silent at first, the music is slowly introduced as the father begins to understand his son's dilemma. the almost seven-minute long scene scarcely used any background music, to slow the pace and make it seem more realistic. promotional material when filming part of the montage that details ishaan's tutoring by nikumbh, khan immediately decided it would be the "key art of the film". he noted that "this one shot tells you the entire story", and used it for the poster. release box office taare zameen par was released worldwide on 14 december 2007, although countries such as australia, malaysia, new zealand, and fiji opened it on 20 december. it debuted in india with 425 prints, although revenue-sharing issues between the film's distributors and theatre owners caused some slight delays. the movie grossed ₹150 million (us$3.63 million) domestically within the first three days. its theatre occupancy in mumbai dropped to 58 percent during its third week, but climbed back to 62 percent the following week—this brought the total to ₹770 million (us$18.62 million)—after the maharashtra government granted the film exemption from the entertainment tax. anticipating further tax exemption in other states, world distributor pvr pictures circulated 200