Not a cheap affair

As is the case with him, Ravi Babu has silently commenced shooting of his yet-to-be-titled next in his favourite place Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad last week. Featuring newcomers like Abhishek and Nabha Natesh (of Kannada film ‘Vajrakaya’ fame), the film, a joint venture between Suresh Babu and Ravi Babu, is a romantic comedy.

“Everybody, more or less, is a new face. I required a fresh feel for the film and so roped them in. Well, it’s always a struggle with them but I’m banking on the novelty factor,” said Ravi Babu speaking to Hans Talkies. He added, “I have a funny way of doing things with newcomers. I try to take them as raw as possible. I don’t train them; I just put them in the shot and explain them what I need and get them to act.”

Known for his low-budget ventures, the director hints that this project is mounted on an expensive scale. “It is not a cheap film because it has lot of animatronics and computer graphics (CG). It is something that I haven’t done before and that makes it more challenging. We are planning to wrap up the shoot by May-end.”

For a change, his favourite composer Sekhar Chandra is not rendering tunes for the project. The tunesmith has belted chartbusters like “Ninne Ninne kora” (from ‘Nachavule’), “Paravaledhu…” (‘Manasara’) and “Aarachethini vadalani...” (‘Nuvvila’) among others for Ravi. Ask him why and the director says Sekhar failed to make time this time around.

“Even I was surprised,” pointed out Ravi. “I’ve got a new guy, Prashant Vihari, on board to compose music; it’s his first film.” Prod Ravi whether he was happy with the performance of ‘Avunu 2’ and he responds by saying it was pretty decent. “It got a phenomenal opening. The very next week a big film released. For its size, the performance was okay.” – NR