AP Arjun’s third outing after the success of Ambari and Addhuri, Rhaatee has been the talk of industry circles because of the way in which it has been shot. Curiosity levels were further heightened after it was revealed that cinematographer Satya Hegde was using the digital camera for the very first time.
Talking about the novel experience of holding a digital camera for his 21st film, when all of his contemporaries had shifted to this medium long ago, Satya states that the entire shooting was a challenge as well as a learning experience. “We had to capture sequences against a city backdrop and in the forest. I used Red Epic for the city portions and Arri Alexa inside the forest. In Bengaluru, we chose City Market, Majestic and Shivajinagar as locations and took candid shots for the same. Nobody on the sets knew where the camera was fixed. We shot randomly, which worked well for the urban sequences,” says the cinematographer.
In the forest, Satya had the challenge of dealing with heavy rain. “Taking even one shot in a day was an achievement in itself. Navigating the tough terrain with wild animals all around us, it was an exceptional experience for us in many ways. I could spend hours talking about the Rhaatee experience. Thanks to the good support from the producers and our director, everything seems to have turned out well. We have done our best and now, the rest is up to the audience to decide," says Satya.
Apart from the terrain shift and the use of the digital format, Satya revealed that there were other challenges too. "We had two new comers — Dhananjay and Shruti Hariharan, both of whom were just one film old. The whole film runs around these two characters with not much of a supporting cast. We had to run the film only with photography, dialogues and music. So, the challenge was to make the film as creatively different as possible," he says.
According to the cinematographer, nature is shown at its best in Rhaatee. In fact, Satya stated that some of the waterfalls will be seen on screen for the first time. He says, “We have exclusively shot at six falls, and except for one, none of the others have been captured before. The shots were taken when water flow was at its peak. Thankfully, the subject of the film blends well with these shots and the director had to make minor changes to the script to match the sequences.”
All aboard The raja rani express
Rhaatee is also capitalising on the music by V. Harikrishna, especially the Raja Rani song, which is already topping the charts. The makers are reaching out to people across the state by running a van called the Raja Rani Express. “This Express started moving around few days ago. It started at Maharani’s College in Bengaluru, and has since travelled to Mangaluru, Mandya, Mysuru, Hassan and is now in Chickmagaluru. It will soon head to Shivamogga. The van will cover at least two locations in each district. A team is also visiting colleges and promoting Rhaatee. They will be travelling for 30 days,” reveals the director Arjun.