Rajinikanth & Shankar visit Hollywood

Shankar and Rajinikanth vist the famous Stan Winston (the Terminator series, Jurassic Park, Iron Man) special effects studio in Hollywood.
In high spirits having celebrated by working on the sets of Endhiran during Pongal, with Rajini and Ash Rai, Shankar blogs: “Ubhayakusalobhari!!! – it’s a Sanskrit word used by Ambi in Anniyan. Meaning: I am fine… Everything OK here… Hope you and your family doing well…”
The acclaimed director shows his excitement by sharing: “Most of you have asked about Stan Winston Studios role in Endhiran. Yes. Endhiran is the first Indian movie to use Stan Winston Studio’s animatronics (electronics and robotics in mechanised puppets to simulate life ) technology. We all are proud and happy to be associated with No.1 Hollywood studio who did a great job in movies like Jurassic Park, Predator, Terminator, Ironman and the recent Avatar.”
He proudly continues: “Myself, Rajini sir and our technical crew had been at Los Angeles for couple of weeks at Stan Winston Studios for scanning, make-up tests and pre-production works in July 2008. We all are excited that we are working at the place where Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger have worked.”
The complexities of shooting an expensive film like Endhiran are conveyed by him: “After 1½ half years of preparatory work a group of top technicians came to Sun Studios Chennai sets and worked around for 4 months. 22 scenes of the Endhiran movie have been shot using animatronics and Special Make-up. Most important scenes were shot live with Rajini sir, using animatronics without CGI.”
He ends his comments by expressing his delight: “At the end of the day, the Stan Winston people told us that they were very happy that the Endhiran movie utilized the maximum amount of animatronics techniques, in so many scenes, in all possible ways, which is very rare in Hollywood too… Cool…”
Photos Courtesy: Director Shankar (c)