Behind the scenes of Kochadaiyaan

23 May 2014

Tamil superstar Rajnikanth’s much awaited ‘Kochadaiyaan’ hit the silver screens on Friday across the country, making the actor first Indian film professional to appear in different formats of moviemaking.

The delayed release of the film is no way deterred the avid ‘Superstar’ fans from getting into frenzied celebrations as they poured milk over his posters and banners, danced to the music of percussion instruments and welcomed their ‘Thalaivar’s’ latest offering in all theatres, even as the actor himself promised a good offering.

“My best wishes to my daughter @soundaryaarajni and the entire #Kochadaiyaan team. I am sure you all will enjoy the movie in the theatres,” he wrote on his Twitter page.

Young and old turned up in good numbers in many theatres to watch Rajinikanth feature in a new avatar. The film released in nearly 2,000 theatres across the world in many languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, English, Punjabi and Bhojpuri.

The multi-million flick, the first Indian film to be shot on motion-capture technology, stars Deepika Padukone, Jackie Shroff, R Sarath Kumar and many others.

Rajinikanth’s daughter Soundarya has wielded the megaphone with double Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman scoring the music.

The movie released to a good opening, industry sources said. Earlier, advanced reservations had elicited good response.

By acting in the film shot on motion-capture technology, Rajinikant has come a long way from his humble debut in veteran filmmaker, Dadasaheb Phalke recipient K. Balachander’s ’Aboorva Ragangal’ (1975), making him probably the only Indian actor to star in all formats of movie-making - black and white, colour and motion capture.

Kochadaiyaan Trailer Launched

9 March 2014

120 artists behind Kochadaiiyaan scenes

14 March 2014

If you have watched the trailer of ‘Kochadaiiyaan’, you might recall an action sequence where superstar Rajinikanth fights off hyenas inside a prison.

The background for the particular scene, and several others, is the result of hard work put in by a team of 120 artists and architects led by artist C.R. Velu.

“We spent about a month-and-a-half travelling around the country, studying palaces and taking high-resolution photographs of walls, pillars, statues, furniture and other things used in the times of yore,” said C.R. Velu.

This is his second film as art director. Velu has earlier worked as assistant art director in 33 films, including ‘Vasool Raja MBBS’ and ‘Dhool’. His first film as art director was ‘Thoranai’ and the third one is ‘Aaha Kalyanam’.

“It was fantastic to be selected to work on ‘Kochadaiiyaan’. I also had the opportunity to speak with Rajini sir. He was very interested in our work,” he said.

The artists drew at least 20 kinds of bows and arrows for the film’s hero.

“In the case of live-action movies, if a song sequence is needed, we need to simply make a drawing and give them a copy to make the sets. But in this film, the artists had to create everything, apart from the actors, so we had to make plenty of drawings.”

Velu has a room full of drawing sheets with sketches made for Kochadaiiyaan. Everything, from the chariots and war scenes to mountains, harbours and forests, has been created by the artists.

Ask Velu if he is satisfied with his work, he says he is waiting for the film to be released.

“We don’t know which scenes were used and which ones were edited out. Like my four-year-old daughter who likes animation films, I too am waiting to watch it,” he said.

Kochadaiiyaan, a performance-capture animation, photo-realistic film, is slated for release on April 11.

Karbonn launches Kochadaiiyaan series

28 February 2014

If you have always wanted to take a picture with actor Rajnikanth, Karbonn Mobiles has something for you.

The domestic smartphone maker has launched a series that come with an application to create 4D images of the actor in his Kochadaiiyaan attire, enabling users to take pictures and view teasers and exclusive rushes of the soon-to-be released movie directed by his daughter Soundarya R Ashwin.

Karbonn has tied up with Chennai-based technology firm ingage to create the application, which relies on augmented reality, an emerging technology that augments the features of a picture with computer-generated animation.

The new phone series, which have been despatched to retailers, will include the flagship Android-based Titanium S5i (5-inches), two other smart phones and two features phones.

The new line of phones has been priced at ₹1,990-8,000. The tie-up will include promotions of the movie through augmented reality-enabled banners and posters in the city, said Sudhir Hasija, Chairman, Karbonn Mobiles.

Soundarya said the filmmaking unit is also planning to sell Kochadaiiyaan merchandise.