SS Rajamouli caught real flies as research for Eega, realised they fall unconscious when exposed to cold: Cinematographer KK Senthil Kumar

Eega cinematographer KK Senthil Kumar, who has worked on films such as RRR and Baahubali, recalled studying flies for the 2012 fantasy film.

KK Senthil Kumar recalls creating a 'customised fly' for fantasy film Eega, directed by SS Rajamouli. (Photo: Instagram/kksenthilkumar/amazonprimevideo)

Noted cinematographer KK Senthil Kumar may have shot big-budget films such as Magadheera, Baahubali: The Beginning, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion and the critically-acclaimed RRR, but he said that the most challenging film of his career remains Eega, the 2012 Telugu fantasy drama directed by SS Rajamouli. Senthil Kumar, who has collaborated with Rajamouli on many films across two decades, recently spoke about how shooting for Eega — which had a fly as its protagonist — challenged him as a cinematographer.

The film stars Nani, Kiccha Sudeep and Samantha Ruth Prabhu in leading roles. “It was the most challenging film. I’d say much more challenging than RRR. We had no reference point. We had not seen anyone do it. The closest that people could come to doing something like this animation. I watched A Bug’s Life for inspiration but hadn’t done something like this in real life. Creating the hero of the film, which was a fly, was the biggest challenge,” he told Film Companion.

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In the film, Nani (played by Nani), is killed by Sudeep’s character, avenges his death after he is reincarnated as a fly. Senthil Kumar revealed that creating and shooting the fly required a lot of observation, study and macro photography. “We caught a lot of flies and studied them. We released that they get unconscious when exposed to cold temperatures for a minute or two and then gain consciousness and fly away. We observed them under macro photography, they were really ugly and of various kinds. After studying them, we worked with a lot of artists and created a custom-made fly. This is how we got our hero,” he narrated.

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In an earlier interview with Rediff.com, the cinematography revealed that the team did extensive research on the film’s ‘protagonist.’ “It may sound weird but a photo session of the housefly was done. We made a fly slightly unconscious and clicked pictures of it at extremely close range. The pre-visualisation was done by the computer graphics guys before the shoot. It was one of the most difficult films I have shot. When I shot Yamadonga, Rajamouli pushed me. Then came Arundhati and later Magadheera. I thought, ‘What more?’ and Eega took me to the next level completely (sic),” he said.

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The success of Eega opened the possibility of a sequel. In an interview Pinkvilla, Nani spoke about Eega 2, and said, “It does call for a sequel. Eega ends on a note saying, ‘I will be back.’ I keep telling Rajamouli sir, ‘If you announce Eega 2, it will have the greatest hype of all time’ because that film was 10 years back and actually the starting point of what’s happening today. It was the first film to leave a mark nationally. He made it in the times when we didn’t even have a good base of CG (sic).”

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