Dr. Pragabhal-directed 'Muddy' is India's first off-road mud racing movie. Starring Yuvan, Ridhaan Krishna, Anusha Suresh and Amit Sivadas Nair, the film will be released in all South Indian languages and Hindi.In this interview, the director talks about what went into making the movie and more.
'Muddy' is the fruit of five years of effort. It was not easy to search for the right artists, who had to know mud racing. After finding them, I had to give them two years of training. We hired trainers.
We made the mud racing shots without dupes. That's why it took two years for training. We had to scour for realistic locations. A lot of accidents took place while shooting in the rocks. Despite so many accidents, by God's grace, nothing serious happened.
I have used footage from national mud races for better output. 'Muddy' is about a family, revenge, action, love, revenge and comedy. Three different types of mud races will be seen in the film. I had done research about the various types of mud races in the world.
Editing and RR have played a key role in revving up the output. Ravi Basrur of 'KGF' fame played two years with me to get the background music right. I used 13 cameras for the mud racing scenes. Thirty-three hours of footage was there by the end of the shoot. The editor had to choose the best clips from the trove of material available. A cameraman broke his leg during the shoot while running behind vehicles.
About 20 people have attempted mud race-based movies in the past. But they couldn't complete any of the movies. I took this up as a challenge and worked on the movie. I always like adventurous things. I am fond of vehicles.
I didn't bother about the commercial aspects while doing the movie. My only focus was to make the film in a realistic way. I don't know what is the budget of the film. The producers gave me all that I needed. About 40 jeeps were modified for the sake of this film.
I did Ph.D. in Management after completing my MBA.
