RGV Blog

Just posting some memoirs of my assistant director Siva Nageshwar Rao of his experiences with me during the making of “Shiva”. These he mailed me after he read my “Assistant to Assistant” article on this blog.

“You used to repeatedly tell the story of  ‘Shiva’ to all us assistants, not just scene by scene but shot by shot. So by the time we started shooting all of us assistants memorized the whole visual treatment of yours by heart and used to joke about it.

When we started auditioning for actors I got some actors from Madhu Film Institute and Devdas Kanagala Film Institute. To a particular actor you patiently explained for a long long time that he should speak very very naturally. He nodded his head and then rendered the dialogue in the most melodramatic way. In frustration you asked him to go and then asked me why he was doing that in spite of your brief. I replied to you saying ‘when you were briefing him you thought that he is listening to you whereas in reality he was just nodding his head and rehearsing the lines in his head the way he was wanting to say. In other words he was never listening what you were saying’.

Another actor when he came for the audition he just sat on the floor and spoke in a very low realistic tone. You were very impressed with him but I cautioned you that he might be very limited as an actor. But you were adamant about casting him and that’s how Chinna came into the picture.

Just to practice shooting you did a video shoot with 2 film institute actors Vinod and Padma to play the Nagarjuna and Amala scene having coffee in the restaurant after the railway gate sequence. The scene turned out to be so bad that you never showed it to anybody.

People in the industry used to ask me on what background you were given a chance to direct a film. I used to answer them he has no background, he has only foreground.

When Tharani the art director put the college canteen set in Key’s High School where we shot some scenes and the ‘Botany Song’ I told the Producer that money has been wasted on the set. When he asked me why, I said that the canteen is looking so real and what’s the point of spending money and putting a set if one does not realize that it’s a set? I meant it as a joke but the Producer nodded in agreement.

At the end of the cycle chase sequence the goon who was trying to catch the bus in which Nagarjuna gets in with the little girl just wouldn’t stop running behind the bus and we all were screaming at him from inside the bus to stop as we needed to establish that Nagarjuna got rid of them. But that guy was adamant to prove his running prowess. Then you took the decision to use the full shot of that in the final edit.

You always used to narrate the Naresh being beaten up scene as he is returning from the night show with a description that we start the scene from the close-up of a burning tip of cigarette. You told me about the burning tip of cigarette so many times that one day while planning the schedule I referred to it jokingly as the “burning tip of cigarette” scene to which you got upset and gave me a lecture on being sensitive and respectful to scenes.

For the wavy mirage effect you wanted in some shots of Subhalekha Sudhakar’s death chase we put a kerosene stove under the lens of the camera to give it that feeling.

You used to play in the office with the axe which was used by Ganesh to kill Sudhakar.

When Ganesh is talking to Nagarjuna outside the college gate JD moves forward to attack and Ganesh irritatedly stops him and says “let me finish talking”. You took 17 takes of that and yet when you saw the rushes you were still not satisfied with Ganesh’s expression and in the next schedule you again wanted to retake that shot. Ganesh still couldn’t give that look of irritation. So I took him aside and told him just look at Ramu’s face how irritated he is looking when you are acting. He wants exactly that same expression. After that the take was okayed.

There was one dialogue of Bharani which he wrote for Amala which I liked a lot but for some reason you didn’t like. When Shiva is walking little away from her, she says ‘Why are you walking so away?. People might think we are married’.

Amala in the theatre going behind the screen and coming onto the screen in Anando Brahma song you copied from Janet Jackson’s “Control” music video.

Whenever you okayed a shot Krishna Vamsi used to have a long face saying that “it could have been better”. I used to tell him that “one should learn to be satisfied with little instead of expecting lots”.

At the cabaret club set where Ganesh is hiding, you took the whole walk of Nagarjuna in a single shot. The producers felt that you wasted the set as you didn’t exploit it from all angles.

A popular producer Suresh Babu that time used to make fun of the title “Shiva” and he predicted that a film with that kind of title is bound to flop.

The now producer/director Ganga Raju commented at that time about the shot in the opening when the smoke comes out of the silencer of the car as being symbolic of the pollution in society due to goondaism.

You liked one of the carpenter’s assistants on the set a young boy of 15 who also used to work as a canteen boy at the studio and made him as your office boy and later on you made him your assistant and then you made him a director. I am talking about E.Niwas.

You picked up editor Gautham Raju’s assistant Satthi babu to be your editor so that he will have more time. In the final cut as you were not satisfied with a particular scene. Satthi Babu’s assistant Shanker cut it and showed it to you. You were so impressed with it and made Shanker as the editor for your next film “Kshana Kshanam”.

You got Deepan Chatterjee to record live sound effects of cars travelling etc. The industry people used to talk about it in wonder as that kind of effort has never been put before.

When the producers saw the final cut of ‘Shiva’ without the sound efx and the background score they found it slow and boring.

You wanted a wind effect for the climax roof fight between Nagarjuna and Raghuvaran. An electrician called Humayun dismantled a big storm fan and carried it part by part up the newly constructed Swapnalok complex in Secunderabad and reassembled it there for the shoot. You were thrilled and hugged him for that effort. Incidentally Humayun in the last election contested on a PRP ticket and lost.

Neither the people who worked on it like us nor anybody outside ever imagined that ‘Shiva’ will become such a big cult hit. After its super success I was truly surprised that you still remained the same way, the way I have always known you. I truly thought that the success will go to your head and make you very arrogant. Then later on when I thought about it I realized the reason why you did not become arrogant in spite of such success, it was because you were already arrogant even before you became successful”.