War scenes in Baahubali The Beginning cost Rs 25-30 lakh per day; Rs 2 cr was spent on Baahubali 2 The Conclusion’s previsualisation

SS Rajamouli would then list the elements he could do without or suggest alternatives, such as downsizing sets or altering the filming approach to minimise the use of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI). “Nonetheless, there will be instances when he says, ‘I won’t compromise on this.’ Take the ‘Manohari’ item song, for instance. The original plan was to get a big star for that song. However, as the expenses were going up, we all started considering if we should have the song in the first place. Then Rajamouli said that the song was needed, but not a big star to feature in it.”

‘Spent Rs 25-30 lakh per day for war scenes’

Shobu Yarlagadda also spoke at length about the war scenes, which cost them Rs 1 crore every fourth day. “We spent Rs 25-30 lakh per day, and it spanned a 30-40 day schedule. In between, we paused the shoot for a day to discuss the costs. This is just the production cost I am referencing, not including CGI or other expenses. We examined it and realised that there wasn’t much we could do. So we went ahead, after doing a little bit of tightening and optimisations.” Shobu continued, “There were times when we needed 500-600 people as warriors. So we got bodybuilders from Vizag who charged a reasonable amount and would be with us all the time.”

During the conversation, he also mentioned that pre-production has become relatively simpler in the past decade. Revealing that pre-production for Baahubali: The Beginning lasted a year, he said, “Even then, once we started shooting, we realised that there’s a lot more. Our process involved concept art development, world-building and setting rules. Thanks to experience and the arrival of AI, the process from the concept stage to previsualisation has changed significantly. While doing Part 1, there was no previsualisation, either because it was too costly or because we didn’t know about it. For Part 2, we went to Los Angeles and the entire war was previsualised, which alone cost Rs 2 crore. But that helped us shoot exactly what we wanted. It helped save more than that during production. As long as the project is viable and profitable, everything makes sense.”

For the unversed, previsualisation is the process of planning a movie or video by creating rough visuals, like animated storyboards, to see how a scene will look before actually filming it.