Tollywood reboots: Telugu film industry jumps back into action

Bollywood is still cagey about restarting shooting work despite restrictions easing, but the Telugu film industry has jumped back to action with gusto. Filmmakers are picking up projects where they left off before lockdown, to try and wrap up films for release without delay.

Big films such as "Ghani", "F3", "Lakshya" and "Major" have entered final schedules of shoot in the month of July.

Producer D. Suresh Babu, whose film "Narappa" is now set to release digitally, explains how the team planned shoots in a way so that everyone remained safe through the first and second wave. "When we were shooting before the first wave, there was a village five kilometres away from where we were shooting and there was news that two people had got Covid. The whole unit left overnight. We had about four days left. If you see, Venky (the film's hero Venkatesh Daggubati) has two looks -- a bearded one and one without beard. Our idea was to finish portions with the bearded get-up first and come back. But the whole unit was so scared that we cancelled the shoot He adds: "We waited through the first wave, and when normalcy was restored, we first shot portions where he had his beard. We took a break, and then started the parts where he didn't have a beard. While we were closing up, the second wave was starting and we had bits and pieces to do, so with great caution we had to work on that."

"The entire post production was done in the second wave. We were scared to go for background scores because those days, the cases were on a high. Things have now become better but again, we don't know when things are going to be back to normal. One of the reasons why we decided to release it digitally is because we thought people are going to be safe at home. Why not sit and watch it at home?" Suresh Babu says.