There have been directors in the past, who were so passionate about their work, that they would go to any limit to make sure everything related to their movie was authentic (place, sets, ornaments, and so on). Whether it really converts into a box office success is debatable, but what cannot be debates is their commitment towards the art.
And its not that such commitment is shown only in the veteran directors, a lot of newcomers are also not ready to compromise when it comes to giving that perfect touch to their movies.
Here’s an instance where South-Indian Director Sathya Prabhas Pinisetty shot his upcoming Tamil-Telugu directorial debut Yagavarayinum Naa Kaakka at over 100 locations.
Now those hundred locations were really not in hundred different cities but spread across 5-6 cities in India, but the effort required is still huge as you have to constantly move around your equipment and crew from one place to another.
So why did the director do it?
“The nature of the script was such that I had to change about 140 locations. The story revolves around four characters in four different parts of the country and I wanted to keep it authentic. Therefore, I didn’t want to compromise creatively,” said Director Sathya Prabhas Pinisetty.
The director’s reasoning is that because the movie is inspired by true events, shooting at over 100 locations will help the narrative look authentic. And if shooting at so many locations does give a different feel to the movie, from the audience’s perspective, then its definitely worth the effort.
Convincing the actors and the crew
The director had to spend time convincing his actors and the crew about the merits of taking such a step, because its a big hassle for everybody. Not only the traveling takes time, taking the required permissions to shoot at the various locations is also a time-consuming process.
But here’s how the director defends it!
“I had to constantly shift locations in a city. There are two ways of doing it. You can either cheat and do it according to your convenience by compromising on the ambiance or take your time and convince your team to go where your script takes you,”.
Any foreign locations?
The shooting was done in cities like Bombay, Goa, Pondicherry, Hyderabad and Chennai, but across more than 100 locations in those cities. The director didn’t chose any fancy or exotic locations but chose more realistic locations, such as the fishing harbours in Pudupettai, VT station in Mumbai and so on.
However, they did plan to shoot one of the songs abroad, in Bolivia.
“We might go to Bolivia to shoot one last song. There’s a place there which I thought was fabulous, but I’m not sure if it’s still the same. We are doing a weather check and if we can’t make it, we’ll shoot it in India,” said the director.
Wow, that’s really lots of effort to film one movie; hope it really does well at the box-office.
Yagavarayinum Naa Kaakka stars Sathya’s brother Aadi Pinisetty in the lead, and also features Nikki Galrani, Mithun Chakraborty, Pasupathy, Harish Uthaman and Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli.
