The Lion King being animated might be making news now, but a 30-year old film starring Rajinikanth was the first Tamil project to use animated characters with live actors.
The song in question — Raja Chinna Roja — was a sensation back in 1989, for it used an animated version of elephant, rabbit and monkey long before computer graphics became a thing. “It was a challenging experience,” recalls Muthuraman, “But it will remain among the most memorable shoots as well.”
The brainchild behind the concept was the film’s producers, AVM, and Saravanan, the man at the helm of affairs, was insistent that it be a kid-friendly song. “He (the producer) told me that since this film had children and Rajinikanth, we needed a number that will appeal to kids, and that’s how we started work on it.”
Actor Rajinikanth having a word with director S.P. Muthuraman at a recent interaction | Photo Credit: R. Ragu
Lyricist Vairamuthu was roped in, and the brief Muthuraman gave him was: ‘If we help animals, we will get help from them in return.’ Chandrabose was in charge of coming up with a tune that would be easily hummable.
Thus was born Raja Chinna Roja. But the inception of the song was only half the job done. The bigger challenge was to shoot it in “cartoon style”.
Life in animation
A big set was erected at AVM for the song. Muthuraman got dance master Puliyoor Saroja to work on the moves along with Rajinikanth, Gauthami and the children in the song. “This wasn’t any ordinary song. Since we knew we wanted the final product to feature animated versions of animals, we had to plan a lot,” he recalls.
Rajinikanth, Gouthami and Chinni Jayanth in ‘Raja Chinna Roja’ | Photo Credit: STAFF
So when they finally shot the song, Puliyoor Saroja and her assistants would pose as the elephant and rabbit, in order to evoke the appropriate reaction from the artistes. “It was all imagination. We had to shoot that entire song thinking that there would be an elephant there, but all the artistes could see was Puliyoor Saroja! She kept acting like animals on the sets, in order to get the children to react better.”
A few months before this shoot happened, Muthuraman went to Bombay to meet a person called Rammohan, who was an animation expert back then. “He was the best back then, and we really wanted him to work on it,” he says. But there was a catch: Rammohan had his hands full with projects.
“He said that such a task was impossible and that it would take a lot of time,” recalls Muthuraman. After many discussions, the filmmaker managed to convince the animation expert — but only after promising three months of time. “I told him that we would shoot the song and get back to him. His work in bringing to life the animals was phenomenal because it involved a lot of sketches and imagination, back in a time when computers weren’t around.”
Muthuraman has gone on to do several other memorable projects —he directed Rajinikanth in 25 films — but Raja Chinna Roja remains close to his heart. “It was difficult, but we managed to pull it off. That people still talk about that song gives me a lot of happiness.”