Inside RRR universe with cinematographer KK Senthil Kumar, his two-decade long association with SS Rajamouli

Nearly two decades ago, when KK Senthil Kumar said hello to a young director called SS Rajamouli who was going to make Sye (2004), a film on rugby, no one knew that it would be the beginning of a unique collaboration. From then till now, the duo has worked together using imagination, creativity and technology to bring to the big screen a vision that’s superlative and leaves most viewers in awe.

With Jr NTR and Ram Charan-starrer RRR , their latest work together, audiences have been yanked into a cinematic universe set in pre-Independent India, which is rich in detailing and action sequences.

Despite the calling card of the film being its grandeur, it stops to let people’s emotions show, even in crowd sequences. “Our first and foremost desire was to capture the emotions portrayed better,” says cinematographer Senthil Kumar.

The film saw the ARRI Large Format camera being used for the first time in the country and Senthil says they wanted it to be presented to the audience in the best possible way. In a post-release interview, Senthil Kumar speaks at length about the five scenes that were important to him from a cinematographer’s point of view and how the team went about capturing them. He also speaks about working with SS Rajamouli and what drives him after all these years in the industry.

Scene 1: Rama Raju’s introduction

You remember Ram Charan’s famous 100-soldier fight in Magadheera, where he is pitted against 100 people? We wanted to go one step better in terms of magnitude. We decided to put him amid a thousand people, that was the basic idea. We felt the concept was exaggerated, but as we worked on it, it began to look intense. We wanted to create a claustrophobic feeling for the audience. We wanted the camera to not just capture the action, but be a part of it. We wanted the audience to not just see how Raju or the crowd were feeling, but to feel like they were in that fight. And so, we took the camera inside and followed him close. When Charan fell, the camera went inside the crowd. We did extensive pre-prep for this scene, working with stunt artistes and actors, and improving it till we got what we wanted.

When we saw the effect on the monitor, we were thrilled, because we were slowly seeing something we imagined take shape well. I am happy we pulled off that scene before the pandemic, or it would be very challenging to do it.

Scene 2: Komaram Bheem’s introduction

The forest scenes and the tiger fight were probably one of the first sequences we pre-visualised. We wanted the mood right, and we wanted the audience to feel a real tiger was chasing Bheem. We broke down the shot with a lot of detail, so the audience could feel it. MPC, one of the leading VFX companies, did the VFX. We wanted to execute the shot in the best possible way, but did not want to exceed the budget too. It was extremely challenging to shoot in the Bulgarian forests. Parallel tracks were laid so that All-Terrain Vehicles and the camera team could move parallelly or ahead or follow Bheem. It is really hard running in the jungle with the camera, but we found a guy in Bulgaria who was very good with the camera and gimbal and who could run as fast as Tarak.

The biggest challenge was that we had to shoot, imagining the tiger in the frame. It involved a lot of measurement and calculation regarding distance from the camera, height of the camera, the direction of the sun, and the placement of lights for every single shot. Yes, we did do something like this in Eega, but this was on a much bigger, more different scale. Only when this was taken care of would the animal look real and gel with the atmosphere in the final output. The CG work was completed following an intense back-and-forth process.

Scene 3: The meeting on the bridge

When two superstars meet on the bridge for the first time, it has to be a big moment, and also we want to establish that one hero is fire and the other is water. This scene was born out of that requirement — that it should be like the meeting of fire and water. This was one of the most difficult sequences because it employed so many elements.

We used a mix of live-action, miniatures, special effects, and CG to get the quality we wanted on screen. After we began shooting in 2018, we went through many iterations to get to what you finally saw.

We shot the underwater scene at the end of this sequence in a 25-ft deep pool, and used a strong warm colour source of light with a flicker on the surface of the water to create the impression of fire on the water’s surface.

Scene 4: Climax fight

We shot this both on location and on the studio floor. And, my challenge was to match what was happening in the exterior and interior studio floor, so that they seemed like they were happening in one place. We shot it at night, but recreating that in the studio was difficult. There were a lot of slow-motion shots, there was fire all around in this scene, and I had to create that effect on the studio floor.

Scene 5: Interval sequence

This was supposed to be a scene that should leave the audience on a high. It was a face-off that was the highlight of a film with so many wow moments already. Lighting the set was a big challenge and it was a massive set. My manager would ask me why I was lighting up the entire neighbourhood. But the sequence needed that.

Plus, we knew we had two of the finest leading actors on board, among others, and we wanted to leave the audience with some legendary images.

You’re now known as the cinematographer who does crowd scenes very well, where it is not just a sea of people, but individuals with emotions. How do you go about this?

I think that stems from the team’s desire to respect the audience. Rajamouli believes that the crowd should be in sync with what is happening on screen. We usually have a big TV screen on set so that we get proper details of the background. The background directors did a great job with rehearsals for the background actors in terms of reactions. After every shot, we checked to see if we got the heightened emotions we wanted in the background.

How have you and SSR grown as a team, personally and professionally? You have a substantial body of work together.

It’s going to be 20 years since we began working together in Sye. Even then, he wanted to tell a story that was extremely new. He was excited about rugby and wanted to pass it on to the audience. I was 27 when we did that movie, Rajamouli is a year older than me. I am glad I’ve been working with him to fulfil his vision. We gel well. With every film, he’s pushing boundaries, and I am a part of that effort. I am also growing and it is a great journey. With every film, I believe we are taking Indian cinema to the next level.

That said, it is not very easy to please him. He always wants something better and just because you’ve worked together before, he won’t settle for less. There are unimaginable challenges and you have to prep well and upgrade yourself with the latest so that you can match him step for step.

You’ve been part of so many big films. Do you someday hope to be part of a small, quiet film universe too?

It’s not that I’ve only been part of big-budget films. I have done a fair bit of other films too. I started my career with a low budget film called Aithe. I’ve done Mohan Krishna Indraganti’s Golconda High School (2011), a coming-of-age drama about boys and cricket, and Vijetha (2018). I don’t really differentiate when it comes to cinema, or classify it into genres. For me, cinema is beyond classification. I like to help my directors tell their stories. I take up what is close to my heart.

I began my career with television and documentaries. I still keep doing commercials. I like the idea of being part of a unit. I like the atmosphere on the set, and big or small does not matter at all.

Subha J Rao is a consultant writer and editor based out of Mangaluru, Karnataka. There, she keeps alive her love for cinema across languages. You can find her on Twitter @subhajrao.

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