Baahubali! Baahubali!
And he said, "Rana, you're telling me
you all are making a 200-crore war film in Telugu?"
Baahubali: The Beginning!
Is it going to be a new beginning for the industry?
Baahubali: The Beginning has finally crossed the 500-crore mark worldwide.
Baahubali: The Beginning becomes the most searched Indian film on Google.
It has set many unprecedented records.
It is being billed as the most successful Indian film of all time.
-India's highest-grossing film. -A pan-Indian film,
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion.
It will be the first film in India to earn 1,000 crore.
And the highest-grossing Indian film globally.
Baahubali 2, the number one Indian film at the worldwide box office.
Baahubali actually redefined Indian cinema.
K Raghavendra Rao, BA., presents
Arka Media's Baahubali.
Jai Maahishmathi!
It was a TV serial called Shanti Nivasam.
I gave him a 20-minute outline,
and he turned it into 500 to 1,000 episodes.
He would film it better than what I had narrated.
He wouldn't take it lightly just because it's a TV serial.
I told him, since he's a prodigy of RK Banner,
and considering I'm not after money or fame…
I told him to direct a film for us whenever he's ready.
The first serial I directed was an RK Tele Show, Shanti Nivasam,
under the guidance of Mr. Raghavendra Rao.
My first film was produced by Mr. Raghavendra Rao, called Student No. 1.
Working with RK again is like coming back home to my own banner.
Alright. All the best.
Just kill it, guys!
So, the combination was Mr. Raghavendra Rao and RK Films-Arka Media Works.
And Rajamouli with Prabhas.
It was the first genesis of Baahubali as a film.
It wasn't titled Baahubali at this point.
There was no story in place either.
We just knew we were going to work on a larger-than-life project.
That's how the idea started.
He'll be wondering why is everyone chanting the name Baahubali,
who is this Baahubali?
Oh, nice.
-You got to be quick. -Simple…
Rock, Cloth, Scissors.
See?
What's more harrowing than a swish of the blade or a swing of the spear is…
…Betrayal, Mahendra.
Who is it, Grandpa?
Who is it?
You're looking at him.
It's me.
"The sun is setting."
"Under the searing Sun, Baahubali glistens in a cloak of blood."
"yet I swear, none of that blood was his own"
"No man valorous enough to kill Baahubali has ever been born."
"No blade cuts deeper than a backstab."
"I stabbed him in the back and killed him."
This is the first scene that I narrated to Rajamouli.
That is all I had written.
But I saw his eyes sparkle as he listened to the scene.
Baahubali! Baahubali! Baahubali!
It could use some more energy.
Baahubali! Baahubali!
Baahubali! Baahubali! Baahubali!
Baahubali is a suicide mission.
So, to get people onto this speeding, crazy boat,
I, as a maker, need to have that belief that we can make it.
Once the story was ready,
it was my belief and passion that steered the wheel.
I think more than the story,
it was my passion which made people come on board.
Be it the actors or technicians.
I remember being in the dubbing theatre for 'Rebel'.
Rajamouli sir came to see me and narrated three scenes.
The first was Ramya Krishnan ma'am holding the baby above the water.
Second, why Kattappa killed Baahubali.
Third, the mother killing the son in the 2nd part.
That's when it occurred to me that…
I couldn't be part of a bigger film than this.
I came on board right away.
I knew Rajamouli sir had worked on five stories before this,
none of which satisfied him.
I won't take credit for his decision to make this film, but…
I knew he'd make a blockbuster if even one of those scenes worked.
At that point, it wasn't a two-part film.
The thought of exploring three emotions in a film with Rajamouli sir was intriguing.
I got all excited and told all my friends that…
we were going to make an explosive film.
Given how strong the story was,
I was confident that everyone would jump at the opportunity
to work on this project.
I believed there was no greater story than this.
I knew I could go to any actor or technician,
and they would come on board without a second thought.
That was the case with most of the actors.
There was a lot of excitement after the narration.
Most of them had tears in their eyes.
They jumped into the project.
I had no doubt whatsoever that they would like it.
He didn't start with the story. He started with a map.
"This is the Kingdom of Maahishmathi."
"This is where the water bodies are. This is where the mountains are."
"The statues are not of gods, but of their warriors from the past."
"That's the entrance to Maahishmathi."
I think that was the first moment of excitement
because stories like this had previously existed
only in comic books and Hollywood films.
But his explanation just took me into a trance.
It just drew me into a world that was so big and magnanimous.
Bhallaladeva is mightier than Baahubali in terms of warfare.
-Physically, he's superior. -Physical strength.
Then, the minute he said I was the King of that kingdom,
everything changed.
And action!
Action!
And action!
My first film with Rajamouli sir was Vikramarkudu.
He told me upfront that he doesn't write extensive roles for heroines.
That it would be glamorous and include dance numbers.
He said that's what he had to offer, and asked what I thought.
Even when I headed to the meeting, I didn't think too much of it.
When the narration began, it wasn't all about Devasena.
It was about the world of Baahubali, Bhallaladeva, Shivagami,
I could see each character come
to life in my head as he narrated.
Mahendra Baahubali!
Cut it! Cut!
I was listening to a script after a long time.
What's more, Rajamouli sir was narrating it.
The introduction scene…
"Mahendra Baahubali must live!"
And in that moment, I knew I had to do this film.
And I had made up my mind.
3, 2, 1. Action!
And… Action!
I don't think I could've imagined
doing something like Baahubali with him.
He's been a trailblazer in the sense that…
he always attempts something new, whether anyone believes in it or not.
I realize it's been 10 years
since Baahubali released.
But it genuinely feels like yesterday.
"It has turned into ashes."
I asked him, "How can I help you?"
"I know you didn't come all the way to narrate the story."
He said,
"Sir, I would like to meet Sathyaraj sir."
"You can go meet him", I said.
"No, sir.
I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable to narrate a scene."
"I don't know whether he'll accept that or not."
I was super interested in meeting Rajamouli sir.
He came to Chennai to narrate the story.
He said, "Sir…"
and there was pin drop silence for 5-10 seconds.
He said,
"Sir, you have to place Prabhas' foot on your head in this shot."
I obviously had a bit of ego about it.
Why should I place Prabhas' foot on my head?
I asked him how it was justified of the character to do this.
Then he went on to narrate the story.
That reeled me in. I got extremely excited about playing Kattappa.
I've decided right away!
Then came the scene where I should place Prabhas' foot on my head
I said "Sir we should definitely do it"
"That's when this character will truly shine."
Cut it! Shot okay!
I was simply awestruck when I heard it initially.
His style of narration is also very visual.
We can't help but imagine his world.
It doesn't work any other way.
It was only when I listened to the story again later on…
that I understood the work cut out for me.
We had a concept art of the waterfalls made.
It hadn't existed anywhere in the world,
and was purely out of his imagination.
It was like a streak of water.
And then they started zooming in.
When you looked further down, you could see a tiny human form.
I said, "That is the scale of the waterfall that I'm looking at."
"Shiva should climb all the way up."
"I want all the details from this sketch."
"I will shoot it exactly like this."
All the technicians understood the vision.
Then they brought in their experience.
He made it clear to me that this visual was a must for the film.
That's when I understood the scale of it.
Then we discussed about it…
He told me that he wanted to make it look like Rome.
That's when I understood how huge a film it is.
The scale of the film, the number of actors, and the depth of the story.
A sense of fear crept in when he narrated the story.
I wondered if I could pull off those extreme sequences.
If I could live up to that vision.
If I could create sequences of such a high standard.
It started out as one film.
Then it became two parts.
During that period, the training really began.
He mentioned there would be workshops.
We realized he was trying something new with this film.
Nowadays, I see all these young actors
actively taking part in script-reading sessions.
But Rajamouli was particular about it even back then.
He insisted on workshops.
Rajamouli was like a principal to us.
We did whatever he told us to do.
Me, Rana, Sweetie, everyone.
Everything started here.
Right here, sir.
You can remember the day. It's like…
Crazy…
It was right here.
I have mugged it up.
We have used our talent.
Like a kid, he has memorized it twice.
He would have lunch and immediately doze off.
I guess it's not so bad.
They've given me three pages. Look!
My hands are shivering.
I won't make it to the class tomorrow.
Oh…
The workshops were very scary.
Rajamouli sir and Nasser sir would sit and make us say things in gibberish.
It was very scary.
We went on to have a lot of training.
Prabhas and I were reasonably fit people.
We have always been fit by a general standard.
But for Baahubali, we realized we needed a whole different level of fitness.
We would start chatting with our Indian trainers, distract them,
and cheat on our workouts.
After which, they brought us these Vietnamese trainers.
They didn't speak a word of English other than 'Yes' and 'No'.
They only spoke Vietnamese.
I don't understand 'No'. I don't know.
Bye.
Tomorrow 5 hours.
Please, man.
It's been only a month and we're already screwed.
We assumed the sword fights would be relatively light.
We didn't expect the Vietnamese trainers to make us work so hard for it.
I've always been a film lover first.
I've always been a fan of…
swords and films like this.
So, I just keep training from morning till they let me go.
With Rajamouli sir, you can't cheat anyway.
With these trainers, it's worse.
Ten times worse.
We had to do everything our Principal ordered.
Rock climbing, sword fighting, horse riding.
They would even call to check if I had gone horse riding.
Do you have sugar?
For the horse?
I'm a bit lazy.
Not necessarily on sets but, I can be lazy sometimes.
I would miss a horse riding session and then blame it on the weather.
He insisted that I take it seriously and even asked me to keep a horse at home.
I said, "Keep a horse at home? Are you serious?"
This will keep me busy for a year, easily.
I had these ducks at my guest house.
He told me that horses were the real deal…
and asked me to go horse riding every day.
I said, "Now I have to raise a horse for your film?"
It started with those sessions of martial arts and extreme weapon training.
Then, body building became a large part of the process.
Is your body original or CG generated? Hello! It's original.
Your arm and head look huge here!
We started getting concept art done from the very beginning.
A number of artists joined us.
They made great sketches of the…
costumes, armors, swords, forts and thrones.
All of them looked great, but each artist had a different style.
In an attempt to achieve uniformity,
we started establishing the world of Baahubali.
How is this world going to look, so on.
We started answering all these questions.
Till then, one year in pre-production was unheard of for a film.
Set designs, World of Baahubali, Concept arts.
Things that nobody had thought of.
We spent our time, money, and resources building all these things.
That work was amazing and extremely detailed.
That level of detailing was unseen and unheard of before.
Concept art was of great help to kick-start the film because
it gave everyone an idea of what we were going to create.
We used storyboard animatics extensively.
We have a concept artist called Pratheek.
He does very interesting black and white moving animatics and storyboards.
We can avoid CG in a lot of things.
We can use light.
We had something called a bible written for Baahubali,
where we talked about even the political situation of how it was.
Things that weren't shown in the film, but
as a team, we all knew what was happening in Maahishmathi at every point in time.
Initially, I had gotten many costumes made…
with the references of Amar Chitra Katha.
I thought they were very good.
But when we put the actors in them, they looked very comical.
Damn!
He thinks your costume looks better.
It's me, not the costume.
That's the problem with all of them.
The designs were really good.
But once we incorporated them, they looked very funny.
When it came to the jewelry,
the sheer amount required was beyond anything we had imagined.
We weren't prepared for the first day of shooting.
When I wore the crown and armor for the first time,
it was definitely a new experience
because I had never worn anything like that before.
Sir.
Sir, they're killing me!
This is a torture helmet, sir.
Aditya Chari from Firefly
initially gave us the armor designs.
They were really very beautiful.
It was heavy. I didn't notice it at first because I was so excited.
I went to Sabu Cyril and told him how good the armor was.
It's the first time the Indian film industry has used this kind of material.
It's highly flexible, yet it looks like metal.
What can I say? It was a great feeling.
It got too heavy when we used a particular material to achieve the desired look.
We can still not be sure of the costume until the day of the shoot.
-We will face difficulties as we go on. -Yeah.
It was one heavy armor.
I had to fight wearing that and the crown.
We couldn't secure the crown with a string.
So naturally, it would fall off in the middle of the fight.
We did the horse sequences for two days, which certainly tested us.
So, the armor would slide up,
above the shoulder, like this.
And, Rajamouli is a perfectionist.
He would pull it down tightly before the shot, which made the horses move a lot.
I had to hold the horse, the armor, and the helmet, all at the same time.
After an hour, the horses got familiar with…
the sound cues "Ready" and "Action".
They are inherently super-fast.
They would immediately run as soon as they heard "Ready".
Cut it.
Baahubali's horse was supposed to be first.
But with these horses, we could never tell.
We had to line them up again.
On the third day, we decided not to yell "Ready", but instead do this.
I would hold everything in place and go once he sighed.
The horses would watch me and get ready.
By the fourth day, they had gotten used to this pattern as well.
Horses, ready!
-All the horses! -Go!
We would make 2-3 backup armors for certain shots.
Armors that moved differently based on the requirement.
They had varying levels flexibility in certain parts.
Even the armor was very complicated to carry.
It was definitely not an easy task.
-Shot ready! -Action!
One!
Two!
Three!
Cut, cut!
At first, it was only an iron ball and a chain that I had as a weapon.
So, I trained with that for a couple of weeks.
He said, "This is good for far combat, but what about close combat?"
"We have to, through this, design something else."
So then, they attached a stick at the end of it.
So he hits like this,
presses this one, comes closer,
and now it is like a mace.
Bam! He hits, and these guys get crushed on to the guys at the back.
That childlike excitement of why you are in the movies…
was answered to me because of Baahubali.
"I will kill him!"
Action!
"Mahabali! How dare you insult my court."
Cut it. Okay.
The biggest technical hurdle is money.
Baahubali's budget is quite high.
While we would invest 50-60 crores on a film earlier,
Baahubali 1 was made with a whopping 220 crores.
But in reality, to make a movie like Baahubali: the Beginning…
requires two times the budget to fulfill our vision and ambition.
That's 400-500 crores for the first part alone.
That was the requirement for such a vision.
Let's say this is the mark that we were trying to hit.
Only when we got into it did we realize that his vision was somewhere beyond.
Usually, the budget for big films is this much.
Baahubali's budget is this much.
But in all honesty, we need much more. That's the comparison.
Since I used to take care of the finance and the business side of things,
I had an Excel sheet stating the expenditure and then the total market.
After a certain point,
once the expenditure started increasing and crossed the market…
I wouldn't say it was a shock or that it was suddenly getting serious.
Nonetheless, we decided to support the dream.
Two things made me want to be part of this project.
One was that I saw how much Shobu had on his plate.
I mean, it was crazy, the things he had to take care of.
Production and marketing were already underway.
Business deals and negotiations were on the table.
I was also traveling to film festivals and film markets,
trying to see if we could secure
international distribution and foreign sales.
The second thing was that
I felt I needed to play an active role in this dream called "Baahubali."
So, I wrote an email to Shobu saying, "I would like to be part of Baahubali."
I immediately agreed, and we split the work between us.
That was our first project where we divided responsibilities.
I was handling production and marketing,
and dealing with Rajamouli and the entire unit.
He was handling the finance and…
Sales. I mean, the business side of things.
I was in charge of raising funds and closing deals.
The vision and challenge Rajamouli presented to us were unique,
and we were setting a new benchmark for the industry.
I don't think anybody knew what we were getting into.
We had never done this before.
Nobody had done anything like this before, so we had no point of reference.
"Can we do it?" was the first question.
The scale he envisioned came purely from his imagination
and was unlike anything Indian cinema had seen before.
Nobody knew what Baahubali was before it came out.
We had this crazy belief in the filmmaker himself, in the team,
that he would achieve whatever he set his mind to.