Rana’s forthcoming Ghazi is India’s first underwater war film. While only those underwater submarine moving shots or collisions are made in CG using 3D animated models, all the action, drama and emotional episodes in film one see on screen from February 17th are all real and shot completely live when Rana or other artists are performing.
However, the submarine PNS Ghazi set is going to be the highlight. What kinda toil that went into erecting the huge set?
Pakistan submarine Ghazi’s actual length was approximately 300 feet but based on cinema budget and feasible technical grounds, Ghazi technical team designed a 125 feet huge setting in lower tank bund area of Secunderabad.
“We erected 125 feet Ghazi submarine close to scrap market in and around Rani Gunj, Musheerabad, Kavadiguda areas of Secunderabad because 30 to 35 percent material consumed in making Ghazi setting live was used from this scrap market to cut down the expenditure. To give the realistic appeal for Ghazi model and to learn about real time submarine mechanism, we spent three weeks of time in Vizag museum with curator’s permission. During those time periods between 1940 to 71 communication was completely analog and not digital,” Shivam Rao, art director of Ghazi, highlights the passion and dedication behind Ghazi.
All this was on one side of pre production before the entry of PVP and Matinee Entertainment banner into production. Once when Prasad V Potluri of PVP Cinema and Niranjan Reddy of Matinee Entertainments agreed to produce Ghazi with Rana as lead, the whole set had to be redesigned.
“We redesigned the complete submarine setting just before beginning the production phase because our first setting could not accommodate Rana’s height. Producers were very co-operative and a further big submarine was built with three compartments. Designing the interior architecture with propulsion system and armaments used was a challenge.
Except the remains of PNS Ghazi in Visakhatapnam museum, there were no references and evidences to study about USS Diablo (first name for Ghazi submarine) because it was built in 1944 in US, said Shivam Rao, who took it as challenge and erected the set.
Let’s see how it’s going to be seen on screen on Feb 17.