Ramoji Rao Plans Film City For An Opulent Pack Up To Colourful

The last milestone. That is how vernacular media tycoon Ramoji Rao describes the film city that he is building on the outskirts of Hyderabad. And that is why he wants it to be the best, not just in India but in the entire world.

I want to leave behind a landmark which my country will remember me by, says the multifaceted entrepreneur.

He does not reveal how much the project has cost him so far. You guess! is his cryptic answer to probing questions. But he assures resources will not be a constraint to give his baby the worlds best tag.

 

Half a dozen companies in my group keep pumping in funds. Our immediate concern is to make it the best not how much it would cost. It is an open-ended project where facilities will continually be upgraded, says Rao.

The film complex is being so planned that a producer local, from Bollywood or for that matter Hollywood can walk in with a script, money and a cast and walk out with the prints.

Promoted by Ushakiron Movies Ltd, part of the Eenadu-Margadarsi Group, Ramoji Film City sprawls over a thousand acres in lush Telangana countryside, dotted by picturesque hills and lakes, an hours drive from Hyderabad.

It will be one more year before his dream city finally takes shape with all the post-production facilities. This is because Rao is determined to have that cutting-edge technology in audio and colour processing that will give a clarity, depth and sparkle that no other studio can offer.

At the moment two international acoustics experts, John Flynn of the UK, a member of the Royal Institute of Architects, and Sam Toyoshima of Japan, formerly of electronics giant Japan Victor Company (JVC), are working on the project.

Our aim is to provide a fully integrated digital environment for the entire audio post-production process, from dialogue replacement to final mixdown. The acoustics in our mixing theatre will comfortably surpass Dolby and THX standards, says Raghu Cidambi, a director in the company overseeing the equipment aspects of post-production facilities. Rao has also roped in Nitish Roy who has worked with directors like Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihlani, Rajkumar Santoshi and Vinod Chopra and has done art direction for such serials like Discovery of India, Chanakya and Mirza Galib, in his core team overseeing the film city.

A former vice-chancellor of the Hyderabad Agriculture University, A Appa Rao, is helping with the landscaping of the area with 60 odd gardens already in place for providing a fantastic canvas for any film. Hundred more gardens are in the planning stage.

You can recreate an English front garden or a Japanese one, a Kashmir or a Switzerland. And create your own floral pattern mid-song, may be to suit your heroines costume, says Appa Rao.

Forty well equipped studio floors,a workshop with skilled carpenters, sculptors and moulders to create any objet de art in styles from ancient Greek to Renaissance and ancient Indian to modern and abstract, a six-storeyed all-in-one prop shop stocked with English costumes, Louis XIV furniture, Rajasthani cookware to jewellery, Belgian crystals to bullock carts and lighting equipment and cameras make up the readily available production facilities. We have created infrastructure that will facilitate simultaneous shoot for 20 to 30 films at any point of time, says A Ramamohana Rao, managing director of Ramoji Film City.

The infrastructure includes a 175-room five-star hotel, Sitara, a three-star hotel, Tara, and a dormitory to accommodate 1,000 lower grade technicians and artistes.

A typical muddy Indian village, an urban slum, a railway station, a Central Jail with 39 cells, places of worship, an upmarket residential area and English street make up the rest of the infrastructure.