Ashoka - The Hero - Pre-Production

Pre-Production | Production | Post-production

Ashoka Environment Designs:

For the film, the team had to do extensive research. However, it could not come to a conclusive agreement on what the city Pataliputra would look like. The dimensions of Ashoka’s city of Pataliputra are known but since the story was to be placed away from the capital for a large part, the team had to create a city of stone walls and traditional village spaces from ancient India. The team believed that these serve as a better image in the mind of the viewer rather than pushing forth ideas that would be exceedingly radical.

The other part of the film is full of spectacular scenes like an airplane landing in the middle of CST station, a daring airplane rescue, a fight on the Sea Link etc. Being born and brought up in Mumbai, the director, Gaurav Jain wanted to tell an urban story that was picturised around the landmarks of the city. The Bandra-Worli Sea Link, according to the director, wasn’t ready when they started animating the film.  The director says, “We have created a major action sequence on the Sea Link. Ashoka has a fight with the villains and the Sea Link breaks.”

Another scene has Ashoka crashing into the Rajabhai Tower and a sequence showing the CST station. “In this scene an airplane lands in the middle of CST and the municipal corporation office. Being a superhero action flick, there are scenes where you see the city’s landmarks being blown up,” Jain says. So the team worked on known real environments, which should reflect the originality which the audience should be able to identify easily.