- HUGE START: Ponniyin Selvan: 2 premiere gross collections - here's Lyca Productions' official report!
- EXCLUSIVE: Ponniyin Selvan: 1 'Devaralan Aattam' song making process - Lyricist Ilango Krishnan reveals interesting details! WATCH VIDEO HERE!
- Ponniyin Selvan: 2 massive promotional tour ends - Karthi shares a heartfelt emotional statement! Here's what he said!
- EXCLUSIVE: "It's tough to write songs for Mani Ratnam sir" - lyricist Ilango Krishnan opens up! FULL VIDEO HERE!
Ponniyin Selvan is a two-part film that is called the Magnum Opus of the iconic director Mani Ratnam. The film is based on the books written by Kalki and revolves around the Chola Empire. Ponniyin Selvan: 2 was released today and it has a massive cast and also a strong technical backing. It had renowned cinematographer Ravi Varman, Editor Sreekar Prasad, music by Oscar Award Winning composer A.R. Rahman and Art direction by Thota Tharani. Art Director Thota Tharani has worked with Director Mani Ratnam multiple times and has won the national award twice for Art Direction for the film Nayakan and Indian.
The Padma Shri awardee Thota Tharani gave an exclusive Interview to Galatta Media and shared some interesting details about the making process of the sets for his films. When the interviewer asked about the making of the sing Sundari Kannal from the film Thalapathi featuring Superstar Rajinikanth. The art director said “it's my favourite song. We did not have time. They shows us the place early in the morning. It was somewhere in the forest, and the next day morning the shooting was set to happen. So I took Catamaran and all. They asked why I am taking those. I asked them to wait and see and took two lorry load of Catamaran and two Yazhi pillars, we did it there. We did some touch up. In the song, there will be a boat. An associate director of Mani Ratnam was there, He and I did everything.Wwe used a straw carpet for the floor and covered it. It was ready correctly for the shoot. I can't even think of it now, That song was shot in two or three days. Lots of hard work, a lot of people were needed but nobody was there. There would be huge flags showing warriors. All those things we did just casually. For the design on the flag, we took an artist from here as he would draw well and suddenly he left and then I did it. There will be difficulties", said Thota Tharani
As the interviewer asked about his experience from one song with a historical tone to doing the whole historical film. The art director said “We spoke about Ponniyin Selvan during that song (Sundari Kannal - Thalapathi) time. We thought we should do Ponniyin Selvan and we can do it. That was a base. It is just a casual word about Ponniyin Selvan. He (Mani Ratnam) said this song must be like Ponniyin selvan, with that effect. So, we did it like that”.
