JOIN USNot to Canada but South Africa. Yes, Namma Appu and his heroine Nisha Kothari (Priyanka) are flying to South Africa this June 9 to complete shooting the remaining two songs.
The unit was earlier supposed to go to Canada before swine-flu put a spoke in their plans. But it turns out that South Africa was the first choice after all. Says producer Srinivasa Murthy, “South Africa was what we had thought of initially, at the time of composing. Later, we thought we will shoot at the Niagara and planned for a Canada schedule.”
After the heroine expressed her apprehension, Canada was dropped.
A team of 33 members are scheduled to fly out to Cape Town where Hey! Hey, Paro... song, which has already burnt the charts will be shot. Puneet and Priyanka will be matching steps with 30 dancers from in and around Cape Town, selected from professional dance schools.
Adds Murthy, “The locale is perfect. We will be shooting on the streets of Cape Town, the town proper. It’s quite a colourful and vibrant place, you know.” But why shoot inside a city? Loads of similar locales have already been seen in other films... “We have already shot all the greenery we wanted in the mixed song with Appu and the senior actresses in Madikeri. And also in Kasargod, for the song Raja Rani. We have already shot in Agra, Delhi, Jaisalmer and other places... We didn’t want a repeat, so we opted to shoot Paro in a city backdrop,” Murthy explains patiently.
The team is taking three cameras along. But why three?
“We are going fully prepared. We will be taking the Super 35, steady cam and the Jimmy Jip with us. We are sparing no expense in bringing out a super-rich film, the likes of which is rarely seen in South India.”
Usually 18-20 members are enough for a shoot abroad but 33 members are required to pamper Raaj –– four people alone handle the heavy lens of the Super 35.
Then there are separate costumers for Puneet and Nisha, who will handle the 30 costume changes required for the song. But this is not all. After completing the shoot in six days, Raaj and his entourage will then fly to Dubai and from there, hop on to Iceland to film another hot favourite, Poli Ivanu...
Director Prem will leave for Iceland today to scout the locations. “Iceland has some wonderful locations — all largely untested. Only Bond movies have been shot there. Ours will be the first South Indian film to be shot there,” informs Murthy with a touch of pride in his voice. “There are some wonderful waterfalls there,” he adds.
“Iceland was decided when the Iceland government invited us to explore the hitherto unseen places. Everybody has seen Switzerland, Austria and other places. Our director wanted an untested location and Iceland sure has to be explored. So we are going there on Schengen visa. All relevant documents are almost ready. In the meantime, we will be releasing the trailers with DTS in a week. In fact, the entire film, barring the songs’ portion, is being digitally ground at Fixon, Mumbai in 4k resolution. After Rajnikanth’s Sivaji, ours is the first South-Indian film to get such a finishing,” informs Murthy.
This Raaj is sure pulling all the tricks up his sleeve.