She is one of the most awarded fashion designers in India having won the prestigious National Film Awards from the President of India on 4 occasions for Best Costume Design in a Film and numerous other Indian and international accolades for excellence in the field of fashion designing and styling. We are talking about Neeta Lulla, who in a career spanning over 26 years, and over 300 films, has worked to style the look for some of the finest Indian Films, biggest stars and worked with the most prominent Directors in India Cinema.
Neeta Lulla is taking on a new challenge and created something amazing with the entire look she has conceptualised for each of the characters in India’s first Photorealistic Performance Capture Film, Kochadaiiyaan – The Legend. The highlight however remains designing the look of superstar Rajinikanth who stars as a legendary mythological character in the film.
Talking about his look in the movie, director Soundarya Rajnikanth Ashwin said, “Neeta has done an outstanding job on the costumes for Kochadaiiyaan. The details in the armour and the weaponized look of the costumes really creates an impact. The photorealistic performance capture technology used in the film is extremely advanced and the work done on the costumes really shines through.”
Given the uniqueness and majestic persona of the film, Neeta Lulla and her team immersed in extensive research over an expansive period of time in order to achieve the perfect look and deliver intricate luminosity to each of the garments designed for Kochadaiiyaan.
A gargantuan 150 costumes per character was designed on paper, of which 20-25 costumes for each character were selected and detailed. Due to the intricacy of the designs for the costumes, each embroidery pattern was photographed and expertly placed on the garment, to deliver a flawless finish. Neeta also created a range of 20 to 30 looks especially for the armour suit as well as the supporting cast of Kochadaiiyaan. The armour suit included predetermined detailing that was achieved through careful understanding of its movement and appeal, in keeping with the authenticity and credibility of the era.
Neeta Lulla says “It feels totally wonderful to be a part of Kochadaiiyaan. I am proud to be associated with Rajni Sir’s venture which is directed by his daughter Soundarya. Being a part of Kochadaiiyaan is definitely a milestone in my career. I think, the project is larger than life for two aspects- one being Rajni sir and the other being that it is a photo realistic motion capture film format that is a first of its kind. Its visual grandiosity conceived by Soundarya makes the scale of this project one of the biggest I have worked on and definitely one to watch out for!”
She further added, “Another interesting aspect was that we created the looks not in fabric form but a detailed overview in sketch form. My creative team and I worked on for almost 8 months on the various characterizations of Rajni sir and the other supporting cast. It was a different kind of design experience altogether.”
To create the costumes, the characters were created by Neeta on a sketch format – first in colour then a croqui developed by the CG technicians. Detailed research was also conducted to achieve the right ornate look for the fine-looking jewellery, its use on the sketch and eventually on the form. Taking into account the script and the accurate look for the characters the detailing was embellished which took almost 6-8 months of sketching and re-sketching in order to derive the final result.
Check out the coneptual sketches for the costumes!
Kochadaiiyaan – The Legend releases worldwide this 12th December 2013.
