For any art director, a period film is the equivalent of his magnum opus. For Rajeevan, whose career spans two decades, this opportunity came in the form of Karthi’s Kaashmora . Set in three stages across different time zones, it’s an art director’s dream. But his effort in the film goes beyond the responsibilities of an art director. He prefers the term, ‘production designer’. “It’s in the entire look of the film. Not just the sets.”
That includes the film’s war costumes, the weapons, and a fair bit of location-hunting too. “There were no limits to how we could design the sets as the director has not set the film in a particular time. It was pure fantasy.”
Apart from being given a clean slate for his imagination to run wild, Kaashmora afforded him another luxury too. That of time. Delays during filming became a blessing in disguise for Rajeevan. “When I signed the film, it was to be completed in a short span of time. But Karthi went on to finish Thozha during our filming, and this gave us the time to explore fresh ideas.”
This resulted in keeping costs lower too. “We were able try out newer materials, instead of traditional materials like wood and fibre glass. What would have cost Rs. 900 for a sword, cost us just Rs.150 as we had the liberty of time. Even the dummy swords were sharp!”
While comparisons with Baahubali are expected, Rajeevan feels its success has taken us back to our rich tradition of making period films. “We have studios, but not the studio system. Ours is a cinema that was built on making period films, but for long, making such films was inaccessibly expensive. In the efforts to take cinema out of the studios, we’ve lost craftsmen, carpenters, designers and artisans, whose careers were linked to working on sets employed by the studio. The high price we’re paying now is due to how quickly we uprooted some of those traditional systems.”
