Behind every superhero, there is hard work

A still from Hanu-Man

For director Prasanth Varma, Hanu-Man is a passion project. He found the perfect collaborator in Teja Sajja, who plays a modern-day superhero infused with the power of Hanuman. Fronting the ambitious project was a matter of pride for the Telugu actor, but on the ground level, it was a tough shoot. Despite extensive VFX to aid the storytelling, Sajja says pulling off the action sequences was taxing. "It was a physically demanding film. We shot the movie for about 120 days, out of which 70 days were about filming action scenes. I suffered many injuries. Prasanth is someone who won't compromise on [his shots]. I used to do close to 25 takes for each shot while hanging from ropes because the timing of the camera, movement of the rope and landing positions [had to be perfect]," says the actor.

With Hanu-Man, the director has married Artificial Intelligence (AI) apps with storytelling. Last June, mid-day had reported how Varma and his AI prompt engineers utilised Midjourney to design the film's posters (How AI gives birth to a new team of prompt engineers in Indian cinema, June 11).

Impressed by the results, Varma assembled a team that could harness the power of AI technology to create the superhero movie. The director shares, "The work of the AI team is not restricted to storytelling. In fact, for Hanu-Man, we created one character entirely on AI and then used 3D modelling to complete the final look."