Sye Raa Extravaganza To Spellbound

Mega Star Chiranjeevi's Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy which is set for a spectacular release on October 2nd is generating tremendous interest among movie lovers across the country. Art director Rajeevan who is known for his realistic and extravagant sets in films like Seventh Sense, Manam, Naa Peru Surya-Naa Illu India, Dhruva etc. has beautified Sye Raa with his creative excellence.

Meanwhile, Rajeevan shared the secrets behind Sye Raa sets. “During Dhurva time, Surender Reddy called me when I was in Chennai and told 'Darling… We will work once again for another film. This time the scale is large and Chiranjeevi is the hero. I promised saying 'Do not tell me anything. I am doing this film'. He sent me little information about the film and after going through it, I came to Hyderabad. I couldn't get references about Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy and even the snaps. I got few illustrations. It is a historic entertainer and we cannot use our fantasy and creativity. However we cannot narrate it completely in a historical manner. We should understand and not cross the thin red line. Few films twisted history and we do not want to make the same mistake. We tried to show history in a realistic manner.

I formed a team who worked with me earlier and turned art directors now. They have good understanding of history and this proved to be an advantage for Sye Raa. Another three artists formed another team and we got the sketches ready. We got sketches for Chiranjeevi, Nayanthara and all the characters roles. Apart from the sets, costumes is also important. I contacted Rudra Menon, costume designer and got few costumes designed. 22 tailors worked for five months and stitched 15000 pairs of clothes. We acquired the fabric required from Hyderabad. We designed the costumes as per the costumes used by the Britishers during that time.

Before the story got readied we got the architecture suited for the story. We researched old books to find out how British offices and the houses of the people looked alike and readied few designs and animated it in 3D. 3D animation gives 360 degree view and it makes the job of the cinematographer and the director easy and also one gets clarity over the CG work. Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy was the king of 64 villages and all those can be seen on screen. Each village has its own story and beauty. We erected 42 sets for the film and of them 15 sets are quite huge. Sea port and Jaggannath Konda in Sye Raa are very important and entire story revolves around it and so we beautified them in an extravagant manner. For each shot in the film, we watched everything in the drawing room and for that we came with thousands of sketches.

Another important aspect in Sye Raa is the war scenes. We shot few of them in Hyderabad and more than 50% of them in Georgia. We selected Georgia because we need 15000 cast for the British soldiers. We cannot bring them to Hyderabad and train them accordingly as it takes lot of time and involves huge expenses. We went to Georgia and shot for 29 days. We got the replicas of the guns used by British and collected 20 guns and accordingly readied another 200 rifles. We got 20 canons readied and through them we can fire the bullets. If we fire with the canon then even huge buildings will get demolished. We designed all the weapons with our own designs. All the weapons designed for Sye Raa are very expensive and with that budget, one could make 2-3 small films".

We need to wait for few more weeks the witness the visual extravaganza of Sye Raa.