By Iain Blair

RRR is an Indian superhero movie and an international hit, thanks to its story, VFX and blend of emotion and action.

Directed and co-written by S.S. Rajamouli and shot by his longtime cinematographer, KK Senthil Kumar, RRR (which stands for Rise, Roar, Revolt) tells the “true” story of two guerrilla fighters — Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju – who took on the British Raj in the 1920s. It features a cast of thousands and an even bigger army of post and VFX teams behind the scenes.

The long collaboration between the director and cinematographer goes back some two decades. I talked with them about making the ambitious film, which is getting its fair share of Oscar buzz, the challenges of the shoot and dealing with post and VFX.

What sort of film did you set out to make, and how far did it push the envelope for you?
S.S. Rajamouli: I want my films to blow audiences away with extraordinary action scenes and set pieces, so we really pushed all that, but we also need to have very strong emotional characters. That’s what I set out to do on this, and I think we succeeded.

Can you talk about integrating post and all the VFX?
Rajamouli: We began right at the start of prep. The big challenge on this was the huge volume of things – the sheer number of people involved in all departments, the huge amount of VFX shots, all the data and so on. It was easy to get lost in all that and lose sight of what we were trying to do in terms of the story and characters.

This is your eighth film with your DP, KK Senthil Kumar. Talk about what he brings to the party.
Rajamouli: He brings a sense of calm to the set. I tend to jump around, trying to see what I need to do next, and the rest of the team follows my emotional outbursts. If I’m strong, the unit’s strong. If I’m dull, they’re dull. They all take after me. But Senthil is the one guy who doesn’t care about the director. He only cares about the film and how to get the shot done. He’d never compromise, so there’s all that trust, and that’s very important.

How tough was the shoot?
Rajamouli: It was very tough, but it helped that we had a lot of experience dealing with big productions with lots of extras and locations and costumes and so on. What made this so challenging was all the VFX and animation sequences, especially the ones with animals interacting with humans on different levels.

Is it true it took several years to shoot?
Rajamouli: It’s true. We originally planned for two years, including prep and all the post work, but because of COVID, we took another two years to complete it all, so it was about a year of shooting spread out over two years, and four years total to complete the film.

That must be some kind of record, right?
Rajamouli: No, before this we did this two-part series, Baahubali 1 and 2, which took us five years to do, so this was much shorter. (Laughs)

Tell us about post. Where did you do it?
Rajamouli: We did 85% of it at Annapurna Studios in Hyderabad, my hometown, including all the editing, the sound and Atmos mix, some of the VFX and the DI.

A. Sreekar Prasad cut this. What were the main editing challenges?
Rajamouli: We had assistants, of course, but he was the only editor. He’s very experienced, and the main editing he did was not on the film so much but on the script. I gave him the script before we began shooting, and he had a lot of suggestions and ideas that were very helpful. We talked a lot about shots, how long they should be and so on, but more than that, we focused on the characters and their development. Then the moment I start shooting, I start editing.

My team does the edit after a few days of shooting, and we send the rushes to the editor, so by the time we complete a particular sequence, 80% of it is already cut. Then that’s sent off to the VFX team. That’s the process.

There are a lot of amazing VFX. Who did them, and what was entailed?
Rajamouli: There are so many that I lost count. There are well over 2,000. VFX supervisor V. Srinivas Mohan helped oversee shots coming in from all over the world, as we had so many companies working on it, including MPC, Digital Domain, Red Chillies, Firefly, ReDefine, Craft VFX, Mind Visions, Knack Studios, Betta VFX, Makuta, DNeg and several others.

It was a huge job. For instance, that sequence where all the tigers and wild animals escape happens right before the intermission, and it was the most complicated sequence I’ve ever shot. It took over 50 days to plan, which is more prep and previz and planning than you’d do on an entire normal, medium-sized film. And we had over 2,000 extras with different sets of costumes.

Just to get certain elements, like the pipes moving like snakes, took 10 days just to prep. And there were no real animals used in the sequence. It was all VFX. But in big set pieces, like the train crashing into the river, we used a lot of miniatures combined with VFX and real fire and cleverly mixed it all to make it look seamless.

Did it turn out the way you first envisioned it?
Rajamouli: Yes, but we’ve been very surprised by the big reaction to it around the world. I make films for the Indian market, which is very big, but audiences everywhere have really embraced it. I’m very happy about it.

Cinematography

Senthil, how long was prep?
K.K. Senthil Kumar: It took about a year, and we did a lot of camera tests and lens tests. This is one of the biggest films ever made in India, and I wanted to capture that epic quality and make it a really immersive experience for the audience. ARRI had just come out with the new Alexa LF, and it was perfect for us. This was the very first Indian film to be shot on large format.

I shot with ARRI Signature Primes, which are some of the sharpest lenses you’ll ever find. It’s almost like a 3D feel, and that combination of the LF and the ultra-sharp lenses meant that the film could be screened in a wide range of formats, from Dolby Vision to IMAX and 3D.

You must have used a lot of cameras on this?
Kumar: No, I generally just shot with one Alexa LF, which I operate myself. For the big action sequences, we used maybe two, but a maximum of three, at any one time.

I assume you did a lot of previz?
Kumar: Yes, a lot, especially for all the big action sequences, including the chase one in the forest with the tiger, when we introduce Bheem. That was one of the first we previz’d. Then we did the train blast sequence on the river. Then the big sequence that takes place right before the interval in the middle of the film, when Bheem lets all these wild animals escape from a truck, and we have tigers and leopards flying through the air and attacking the British soldiers.

We also had to do a lot of stunt viz, as this was such a huge production, and everyone had to know what was going on and understand the storyboarding and previz and how all the CGI worked with all that. 

This is your eighth film together. Talk about the look you and SSR went for, especially as a lot of it is set at night.
Kumar: We’ve been working together for nearly 20 years now. We did our first film back in 2003, and since then they’ve been getting bigger and bigger and more complicated. My first goal for this was to make it look authentic and not fake in any way.

I knew what I wanted in terms of the look, but the way I work is just to shoot it all clean and then spend a lot of time in post and grading, working on the image and developing the look. I have a DIT on-set, but I do nearly all the coloring and manipulation in the DI, not on location.

How did you even keep track of your work on such a long schedule?
Kumar: We keep a continuity book for every shot with every detail — where the camera is placed, its height, how it’s placed, exposure, focus, all the lighting. That way, if for some reason we need to redo the shot later as a pickup or for CG plates, we know exactly what we did originally and can then keep the continuity.

What about the DI? Who was the colorist, and how closely did you work with them?
Kumar: We did all the grading in Hyderabad at Annapurna Studios with colorist Shiva Kumar. I show Rajamouli what we’re doing, and he may have a few notes, but he basically leaves the DI up to me. That took about eight months, and there was a lot of coordination with all the VFX teams as the shots came in.

So all the back and forth with them is why it took so long, but it turned out looking great. I’m very happy with the way it looks.

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Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.