Shikha Duggal
Director Gunasekhar is expecting his next film Shaakuntalam to be an out and out iconic film. Diving deep into the pulp of history and still not failing to show romance is an all likelihood for the old-timer of Tollywood.
With a biggie like Samantha, he once again wishes to create a cult following, and at the same time transport us to a different time and place. Tracking his glory with this new film on board, we get to know what went into making this period piece with and how!
While on one hand, you get to experience a mythological love story, on the other hand, the filmmaker’s visual wonder will make you go bonkers.
The post production activities have been completed and the story which is based on Kalidas’s one of the extract — to your surprise it’s made with 3D technology. Even the promotions are going on very well, and in full swing. It is known that the famous fashion designer Neeta Lulla is the one who made the outfits for both the leading stars of the movie. Byte by byte we will reveal to you what kind of research was done to make this magnum opus!
For example the designer herself revealed, “The shoulder pad that was worn by the lead actor alone weighed 3 kilos and then we needed jewellery in the form of armour.We took about 8 months to do all of this. And standing out was the queen’s look! We took a 30 meter dress for Samantha’s look. But something different happened on the sets of Shaakuntalam.
The lead actress was infact feeling very happy after wearing her heavy jewellery. You know what? It’s mostly the jewellery that is making the character very beautiful in the movie. It brought even more beauty to Samantha on screen. Level by level the making of jewellery was becoming an extensive process for us and even for the actress. Prior to three days, we used to bring the jewellery and ensure that Samantha does not have to be troubled for anything since she is in her recovery process.”
The jewellery that is made with the help of Vasundhara Jewellers team, had someone special called Neha from there and she disclosed, “For the very first time, I was stunned to see our pieces fitting so well on the lead actor who is a male. Both the lead actors supported and cooperated with us a lot when it came to weightage. It was difficult for us to make them sit together during the pandemic but we did it.
It was the master brain of the director and the fashion designer. I was watching Samantha wearing her jewellery with a lot of dedication, she was sitting for consecutive hours without making a scene. Doing jewellery for a period film or costumes is not an easy task. Machine manufacturing can still be easier but we were doing hand manufacturing which was very difficult because we never treated our business as something commercialised. This movie deserves to be a massive hit.”
It was the turn of the lead actor to butt in and Dev Mohan said, “After wearing this jewellery, I couldn’t go to the gym for a week. Every other day Neeta Lulla was coming with different jewellery to my home. But yes, whenever I was wearing some ornament I felt a little more confident about myself. More than mine, like most of us I was also waiting for shakuntala’s look and the vision is so beautiful to look at. I know how happy Samantha is. Whenever she was appearing on screen, I was forgetting to act. Wouldn’t lie, I was just staring at her. There are few scenes like that in the movie too.”
“Because we were making a film with the scope for fine jewellery we contacted Vasundhara Jewellers,”said producer Neelima Guna adding, “It took many sleepless nights for us to fullfill this dream. To make Samantha look like a golden girl! Since the queen’s look was very important for us in this mythological piece. For seven consecutive days both the actors were wearing almost 15 kilos. Asked them to remove it in the middle of breaks too but the lead actor did not. He was okay wearing it. The dedication was so much that he got marks on his body then.”
We got some more information from the filmmaker himself in detail and he seemed thrilled, “To your bewilderment, we have used real gold in the movie. I was inspired by Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao. He is the originator of such mythological movies. My daughter Neelima brought Vasundhara Jewellers on board because she feels they have a taste of their own.
The jewellery costed around 14 crore rupees and not just real gold, we even used real diamonds. I think this was something motivational for the whole team, I could see artists coming with so much excitement everyday on the sets.”
