Kamal Haasan is probably the first Tamil (Indian?) screen writer to introduce the American page a minute system in his films it is easier quickly assess the approximate  length of the movie by just looking at the page numbers. K.H. honed his screenplay skills with the American Script doctor John Truby.

At a page a minute 181 pages would translate to 181 minutes of screen time. With 10 minutes of fat, lost during the editing and adding 20 more minutes for songs, the film would be over 3 hours. To put it cleverly in James Camron's words the film would be 2 hrs and 75 minutes long.

Kamal Haasan had promised his brother and co-producer Mr. Chandrahaasan that the Tamil "Hey! Ram" and the Hindi "Hey! Ram" in 250 rolls. But now he has ended up using 312 rolls nearly 62 rolls more than promised. The unexpected death of Mr. Mohan Gokhle and Kamal Haasan's tenacious need to get it right is cited as the reason for the extra 62 rolls. (It roughly amounts to 156 rolls per version.)

The most over looked reason says the director is that the film has live location sound. Which means you cannot okay the take with the hope of correcting it during dubbing. Sometimes the actors forget their lines or a jet plane roars past a scene. Even an inadvertent sneeze or a noisy light ballast could create the need for a retake.

1 : 10 is not a bad shooting ratio some say. But Raajkamal Films Producers are not happy. The director it seems has promised a 1 : 7 ratio in his next project.
The locations were Chennai, Calcutta, Delhi and Benares. A location 45 kms from Chennai was dug up and re-created, to look like Mohanjadaro excavation site in Larkhana district, which is now in Pakistan.

Courtesy: Eros Entertainment

For a detailed pictorial Synopsis CLICK HERE. 

More Picture from the movie coming soon....