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| Nagarjuna, Amala and Ramgopal Verma at Shiva 2006 audio release |
Where it was shot
Shiva was almost completely shot in Andhra Pradesh, with only three days shooting done in Madras.
aanandObrahma... song was shot in Borra Caves near Araku. The crew even crawled to reach interior locations of Borra Caves, and thus Shiva is the first movie to be shot in such interior-most areas in Borra Caves. Amala and Nagarjuna's bedroom song
sarasaalu chaalu... was first shot in Usha Kiron Guesthouse, but they didn't like then when they saw the rushes later, and they reshot the whole song again in Usman Ali house, which later became popular for movie shootings. For the Telugu version, all the college scenes were shot at Keyes Girls High School, Secundrabad, even breaking the rear wall and erecting a gate there for the opening shots. For the Hindi version, these scenes were shot at A.G. College, Rajendra Nagar. Sudhakar's death scenes were done near Keesaragutta, while Ram Jagan's death scene was shot in Vengalarao Nagar. The cycle chase scene was shot near Somajiguda, behind the present Yashoda Hospital slum area and Yousufguda
basti (At the end of the chase, the bus he catches is in Krishna Nagar.) The climax was shot in Swapnalok Complex, while the lift scene was shot in a specially erected set in Venus Studio in Madras.
The film was supposed to start formally on September 20, 1989 on Nageswara Rao's birthday. But due to Varma's mind-play, Kondarami Reddy's film that was supposed to start in February got cancelled and the shooting for
Shiva started on February 16,1989. (Akkineni Nageswara Rao switched on the camera while RGV's father clapped the first shot on Nagarjuna and Amala.) The film completed shooting in 55 days over all. Keeravani was Varma's original choice for the film. When RGV was working for the film
Rao Gaari-illu, Keeravani worked as an assistant to Chakravarthy. Varma became close to him there, and he wanted Keeravani as his music director when he becomes a director.
However, everyone suggested Ilayaraja's name, as Keeravani was still a newbie, and thus Ilayaraja stepped in. Musicians in Madras went on a strike before the re-recording started, and the team had to take the double positive to Bombay to get the recording done there. Varma liked Deepan Chatterjee's sound effects for
Sindoorapuvvu and and approached him to handle sound effects for
Shiva too. We all know how the sound effects helped in elevating the film.
RGV speaks on the inspirations of the movie...
The basic plot is a mix of
Arjun,
Ardha Satya,
Kaal Chakra,
etc. The plotline of
Shiva was a direct rip-off from Bruce Lees
Return of the Dragon, in which Lee comes from Hong Kong to work in a Chinese restaurant in Rome, where the local goons try to intimidate the owners. As he tries to take care of them and fights the goons, they get tougher and tougher and in the end, he has a one-to-one fight with the toughest Chuck Norris in the colossuem. Likewise, Nagarjuna comes from another town to attend a college where the local goons are intimidating the students. As he tries to take care of them and fight the goons, they become tougher and tougher and in the end he has a one-to-one fight with the toughest Raghuvaran on the top of a terrace.
- Chinna hitting the pole shot: is inspired from the shot where Kamal hits the pole and misses the train in Balu Mahendra's
Moondram Pirai (
Vasantha Kokila, starring Kamal Hasan and Sridevi).
- Sudhakar hitting the rock scene is taken from Mansoor Khans
Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, starring Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla.
- Shiva reacting to Naresh in hospital bed is inspired by a scene from
MadMax.
- The climax fight on the terrace between Nagarjuna and Raghuvaran is inspired by the cliff fight between Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif in
Mackennas Gold.
- The Ganesh Chaturthi
chandaa collection scene has been taken from Dilip Shankers
Kaal Chakra.
- Amala giving coffee to Nagarjuna before the song is from a Sanjeev Kumars film.
- The cycle chase is taken from Rahul Rawails
Arjun.
- The scene where Nagarjunas dead friends mother slaps the inspector is from Steven Spielbergs
Jaws.
Whose hand holds the cycle chain?
Who can forget the famous cycle chain scene in
Shiva! There is an interesting thing about it. The promos has the hand of Akkineni Venkat, shot by Gunnam Gangaraju who had Fountainhead Advertising Agency at that time! The same one was used in posters too. In the film, the hand which snatches the cycle chain is Cameraman Rasool's. After the shot, the hand which holds the chain becomes Akkineni Nagarjuna's.
Teja's invisible hand
All the posters were designed by Teja. He was inspired by the black and white posters for
Maro Charitra, where you do not see any faces but only silhouettes of male and female. The same theme was used for
Shiva too - you can only see the silhouettes of Nagarjuna and four people on the posters. Also, the name of Shiva has the angry face of Nagarjuna and the cycle chain posters were all his ideas, but the film credits does not have his name.
Rasool who handled steadycam...
Rajeev Menon worked as steadycam operator for the first schedule and quit the job after that. Then, his assistant Deenpal worked for a day but his lean personality was unable to handle the too-heavy camera. I was assisting S. Gopal Reddy
gaaru at that time. He sent me to a crash course to work with steadycam before the second schedule started. While doing the chase scene with Nagarjuna and JD, I needed to follow them all over the college running with the camera. The chase scene was done in a single shot, and I was following them with my camera all the way! When the shot was over, both Nagarjuna and JD were worn out and breathless and then came Ramu asking to do a retake! I was ready immediately but Nagarjuna and JD were not - they said they were tired and cannot do the same scene again on the same day!
...Most of the chase scenes were done by Teja and I on the streets of Yousufguda and Krishna Nagar. Varma
gaaru used to explain the shot to us and asked us to get the results, leaving to us the shot division and working on the shot. ...After the film was a super hit, I was quite sought after in the industry for steadycam shots. As I was working with Gopal Reddy
gaaru, I used to seek his permission specially to oblige such offers as special requests.
