"Ghost" Of and more

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: Big bash Kannada films have been conspicuous by their absence during the festival season for some time now.

This has allowed Tamil and Telugu films to occupy the market during the crucial Sankranti, Ugadi, Dasara and Deepavali festivals.

Asserting itself again, Kannada films are now focusing on releasing during the upcoming festival holidays. MG Srinivas (Srini) directed, Ghost, starring Shiva Rajkumar, is one of those Kannada films which has created a buzz from its launch.

The film will be going up against some big films from the South including Vijay’s Tamil film Leo, Nandamuri Balakrishna’s Telugu film Bhagavanth Kesari, Ravi Teja’s Telugu film Tiger Nageswara Rao and Tiger Shroff ’s Hindi film Ganapath Part 1.

Not surprisingly, all these films are dubbed into four other languages. Srini spoke to S Shyam Prasad about Ghost and how it is gearing up for the competition.

Q. Are you ready for the October 19 release?

A. Ghost’s re-recording and DI process is underway. The film has a large portion of VFX and we started work on that as soon as we launched shooting and it is almost complete now.

We have nearly 1,800 shots with VFX. The most important VFX in the film is Shivanna’s de-aging for one major scene. I won’t reveal anything more about it now.

Q. Did you write this story for Shiva Rajkumar?

A. The script was for someone his age and stature as it demanded a mature actor. I usually pitch the film after I have a bound script in hand.

This script was not complete and I was working on Birbal 2 when producer Sandesh contacted me. He asked me if I have a story for Shivanna. I modified what I had to suit Shivanna and narrated the script to him.

The film was announced two days later. That was how quick the project took off.

Q. What’s the film’s USP?

A. This is a heist-action thriller. We see very few films in this genre in India. You will get to see Shivanna in a couple of unique looks.

From the looks to the sound design and music we have and more "Ghost" tried to create new patters.

Composer Arjun Janya has also come out of his comfort zone to experiment on a new style of music. There are no ‘heroines’, there are no dance numbers.

The four songs are all used in background like you see in a chase sequence in John Wick or a fight sequence in Avengers.

The story is encapsulated in 48 hours, so you do not have space for regular songs.

Q. How was your experience working with a veteran star?

A. Shivanna is a director’s actor. I had the impression that I would have to remind him of a particular scene’s position in the story structure while shooting.

But he surprised me every time by recalling the exact sequence of each shot and scene. I was stunned with the amount of preparation with which he comes to the sets.

His screen presence is awesome and I have tried to use it to the maximum.

Q. Fans are excited that Ghost is releasing for Dasara.

A. There used to be big Kannada releases for Sankranti earlier but we have given up that space. Slowly we will cede space during other holidays and will be left with nothing.

Of course content has to be good, but we should never give up that space. With Ghost, we will go all out to make it a big event. I believe all Kannada stars should target festival holidays for their films.

Our promotions began with our teaser attached with Rajinikanth’s Jailer.

Q. What about other language versions?

A. We have tied up with distributors for the Tamil and Hindi versions. We are in talks with various distributors for the Telugu and Malayalam versions. It will be a simultaneous release.