July 11, 2012 Y. Sunitha Chowdhary
Meher Ramesh's films spell style, grandeur and his titles reflect the content of the films, be it Kantri, Shakti, Billa or now Shadow. His next is Power with Ravi Teja. The director is busy making most of Venkatesh's dates for Shadow as the actor shuttles between his film and Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu.
While multi-tasking he shares his first impressions of Shadow that is on the sets. "When people take time and interest to dress well to go see a film, and theatres are decked for the big release, I see every reason in making my film look like a festival, with colour, grandeur and style. The costumes are tasteful and locations rich and picturesque. Venkatesh might be a senior but you can't dispute his star status. I am going to present him the way I visualised and have registered the title five years ago."
Ramesh completed his academics from Vijayawada, grew up on a diet of Madhu Babu's books but says firmly that Shadow is not a take off from the writer's novel and people would understand it and get an amount of clarity only after watching the film.
He adds that he liked the heat and crescendo the film rises to in Shatruvu and Ganesh, and Shadow will show Venkatesh as macho, heroic and more stylish than Billa. "The film will have a mix of his mannerisms and how I designed him. Venkatesh had some private pictures shot a long time ago, we took them in the pre-production stage and made slight alterations and showed it to him.
He too forgot about those pictures but said he liked the look. He will maintain the bearded look for at least forty minutes in the film and take on another style. We wanted the poster to make a statement, and am happy that both the title and the poster generated a good response. The action entertainer will have Srikanth playing the second hero, Taapsee and Madhurima will play their love interest respectively.
Gopimohan and Kona Venkat who already worked with Venkatesh for Bodyguard and Namo Venkatesa took the burden off my shoulders by agreeing to do the writing and we have already shot two songs in Switzerland and are embarking on a 25 day tour to Malaysia."
Finally ask Meher Ramesh why he doesn't make movies with heroes in the mega family as he is closely related to them, he quips, "I am a Telugu person but I started off my career with Kannada films, it doesn't make sense if I am made to understand that I did those films because I had no opportunities here. It is just that things fell in place and one film followed the other without much thinking, but yes I will surely make movies with my cousins some day. I don't design my future."
