What makes Baahubali truly epic?
In the first movie, it was the scene with the waterfall, where a ripped, wet Prabhas emerges carrying a huge Shiva lingam towards it. It was the scene that set the pace for the movie and it was veteran art director Sabu Cyril who made it come to life.
One of the most sought after art designers in India, especially for visual effects-intensive projects like Ra One, Krissh 3 and Robot, Cyril was undoubtedly the first choice for director SS Rajamouli. Sabu’s initial misgivings were about the size and scale of the project. “The producer (Shobu Yarlagadda) said it was going to be a big-budget project of international scale. When he narrated the script, I knew this could be done in a smaller scale. But Rajamouli showed me a picture of a waterfall which he had worked with someone using Photoshop and told me, ‘If I’m doing this film, this is going to be there in the movie.’ It was the picture of a 1,200 feet waterfall. I understood the scale he wanted. He guaranteed time and money,” Cyril says.
