‘I found myself again shooting in forests’
SUKUMAR REFLECTS ON HIS JOURNEY AS A FILMMAKER AND WHAT WENT INTO MAKING HIS RECENT HIT
The super success of Allu Arjun-starrer has once again reinstated the director Sukumar’s supremacy. His writing and narrative style and directorial finesse have been much talked about. The rustic action-drama’s box office collections have scripted history.
The hotshot director says that the film’s success means a lot to him because he can still recall the amount of hard work he put in while shooting during the pandemic. The film was majorly shot in a forest near Maredumilli.
“There were several breaks for the shooting because of the pandemic. Imagine shooting with a crew of 500 members in a dense forest (Maredumilli) with COVID protocols! Several of our unit members too contracted the virus, so we had to stop again. Boy! Was it incredibly
tough!” recalls the director.
BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE?
Having shot for around 80 days in the forest, Sukumar reveals that initially he was very scared of going shooting every day as this was his first time. “From Maredumilli, we used to travel 3 hours into the deep forest to the
location; post pack up, we travelled another 3 hours to reach our hotels. Just imagine how taxing it was for us physically and mentally,” says Sukumar, adding that the roads were also in a poor condition. “We were traveling at 5 km per hour, and we were psychologically and physically affected.”
Quick to point out that the most challenging aspect of the film was shooting in the forest especially during the pandemic, Sukumar shares that they had to shoot in the Maredumilli forests because they couldn’t get permission for shooting in forests in other states. “It’s tough to shoot when you travel three hours to the location because the crew is physically drained. So traveling was a huge problem. Also, after getting to the location we had to adjust and fix the things and that took around 2 hours,” says Sukumar.
All the travails, however, seem to have paid off especially given the response to the film. An emotional Sukumar feels very satisfied and rightly so. But what kept him and his team on their toes, says Sukumar, was their passion for cinema.
LOST AND FOUND
Despite his fears, the director put up a brave face and made it seem he was cool about it. “Because if I showed my fear, it’d naturally affect the team, and I didn’t want to invite such a situation,” he says, adding that the first thing he did before commencing the shooting was to get insured.
But for Sukumar, the best aspect about shooting in those areas was to be waking up early in the morning and traveling in the forest even as the sun beams breaking through the foliage.
“Although I was born, raised and have been in a village for 30 years, shooting in nature’s lap and these forests have further changed me. It made me a different person, someone who’s realised there’s no need to rush in life. I found myself
again,” he states.
PUSHPA
ALWAYS LEARNING
“Imagine shooting with a crew of 500 members in a dense forest (Maredumilli) with COVID protocols! Several of our unit members too contracted the virus, so we had to stop again.” — Sukumar
For someone who has spent around
18 years in the industry, Sukumar has made only 8 films. “Yeah, it surprises even me when I look back,” states Sukumar smiling, also wondering if he even regrets it. “I don’t know, for some reason my film is delayed. I complete writing my script in 2 months, and from there I start the pre-production. But since films are a collaborative effort the process takes its own time.”
Regardless of the number of films he’s made, the Rangasthalam director feels he has evolved as a filmmaker, acknowledging that he’s gaining a better command over the craft ad that his learning is a continuous process.
“Adapting and updating to the emerging technologies in filmmaking is challenging. So we have to create everything from scratch,” he describes.