Y.Sunita Chowdhary
Production designers Ramakrishna and Monika discuss the challenges they faced during Uppena and the excitement that was in store for them when they bagged Thalaivi:
Association with Mythri Movies
This is our third film with them, our next is Pushpa. We began work on Hero too but that has been put off. Our production design depends on what the script demands, its space, mood and scale. A technician should be usefully to cinema; not just for beauty and visualisation but also story telling. Earlier sets were done manually but now since technology has grown, we too work on those aspects and decide how much to use…i.e on CG and sets. Due to the pandemic, we can’t go outdoors extensively but can manage such stuff on the sets. For instance, Avatar, Bahubali or Jungle Book, we can take them as examples. We can shoot some part in real location and then extend it on sets. To achieve a certain quality from advanced technology, there needs a budget and a market that demands that scale.
In India, we have State-wise and language-wise restrictions, so our budgets are limited. We have to give quality and creativity and spend less from what is given to us. We give a new idea, suggest new places and the scale changes accordingly. Half of the shoot can happen in sets and the other half could be CG. We have done so far a realistic village movie (Rangasthalam), a stylised project (Savyasachi), Antariksham and now we worked on a fisherman’s locality. There is Pushpa next which means we are working on different genres.
A committed team at work
Not only in the Telugu States, we have our teams in Mumbai and Chennai and our assistants come from various neighbouring State, they are fine arts students and also have engineering background. We give a proper action plan of the sets before we go to shoot. We tell the producers to give us the project only if they feel like, without any doubts. We treat it not like a daily job or a chore but give it our all. We are capable of doing so many projects simultaneously but we don’t do that.
Challenges during Uppena shoot
The story is set against the background of a community dependent on fishing and it is near the sea. It is a real place and not easy to shoot. Kakinada, like any other coast, is prone to climate changes and big waves. There were cyclones and heavy rains during shoot and the hero’s house had been put up near the shore. Every night tide would be high and the entire house, boats, boulders would be swept away. The hero’s kitchen would be outside the house. There were fishing nets, lot of other equipment, the ambience would be lost, damaged. We shot for 100 days in different climatic conditions.
We would go early to gather things because the water would grab things and the next day the stuff would be lying around some other place. We had to shoot in different places in parts since artistes’ dates were not an issue at all. The smell of the dry fish was unbearable but went for real locations to keep it natural. Working with Shamdatt was a good part of the shoot. We had worked with him earlier in Sahasam and Bhale Manchi Roju. We were on the same page, knew what he expected i.e lensing and shots.
We had to shoot the song in mid-sea with artistes and there were no night permissions. So we put up a tank set and shot the song in Annapurna Studios. It was mainly underwater and mid-sea shots. Such situations bring the best out of us, we are creative technicians and not contractors. Achieving the impossible is a feat. If something can’t be done realistically, we think of how we can put technology to best use i.e the sea, waves, boat and a mix of CG and production design. Simultaneously the rain conveys a variety of emotions, happy and sad. The visual quality of rain and its depth is highlighted. We also shot a major portion in Sikkim and the rests half in Hyderabad. We went around so many locations and you will find it difficult to identify the place and tell which is real and not. Sikkim is a colourful hill station, Kakinada weather is different.
Working on Thalaivi
If we embark on a project, be it a biopic or anything, we will have confidence or overconfidence. If there is a similar project or projects coming up, we tend to go that extra mile to give the best. The same story can be told differently focussing on important situations and how the narration is executed. The film has great casting, Aravind Swamy as MGR, Nasser as Karunanidhi and Kangana as Jayalalithaa. Like NTR, she is a cinema artiste as well as a politician but here, she was embroiled in many controversies. Her story is dynamic and after Indira Gandhi, she is the only woman who ruled with an iron hand. We haven’t had a strong political force post her death.
So we put the Veda Nilayam set as we were not granted permissions then. To shoot the period or vintage part, we did a great deal of research and design to highlight it. We never watched other films for references. Every place was interesting, be it the old Chennai, the studios or equipment. We put up 21 sets in Hyderabad, another 40 per cent is left to be completed. Right now, the parliament and assembly set is getting ready at RK studios. We never got affected by the rest of stories being made on Jayalalithaa simultaneously.
We are confident that tomorrow when you see, you will agree with the hard work that went into it to bring life into those objects and also the background. Kangana hasn’t taken any other project and is concentrating on this alone at the moment. It is a prestigious film for her and we are confident she will pull it off fabulously. The producers wanted to release Thalaivi in June as we would have wound up by March or April. Never mind, we know despite the delay the response will be phenomenal.
