Ramoji Film city in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, is the world’s largest integrated film studio complex at over 9,000 acres of land in the world as certified by Guinness World Records, provides comprehensive and advanced film production facilities with dedicated professionalism. A filmmaker can walk in with a script and walk out with a canned film.
Ramoji Film City is the ultimate leisure destination for holidays, honeymooners, corporate conferences, events, theme parties, adventure camps, family picnics and grand weddings.
It is also a popular tourism and recreation centre, containing both natural and artificial attractions including an amusement park. It is situated near Hayathnagar and Peddamberpet on Hyderabad - Vijayawada, NH9 highway, about 25 km from Hyderabad. The Outer Ring Road Phase 2 has acquired lands at the entrance and is set to intersect the city.
Studio Features
Ramoji Film City offers pre-production, production, and post-production resources. It offers over 500 set locations. There are many gardens, authentic sets, about 50 studio floors, a digital film facility, the support systems, outdoor locations, high-tech laboratories, etc. The Film City's infrastructure includes custom-designed locations & mock-ups, set construction, properties & costumes, shooting stages, cameras and equipment, audio post-production, digital-post-production/SFX as well as film processing.
Twenty international films and forty Indian films can be produced simultaneously in the complex. It has attracted not only filmmakers from the country, but also producers from around the world including Hollywood.
Tourism
Every year, the studios attracts over a million tourists, and the complex creates revenues in billions of rupees. Located at the entrance of the film city are the 3-star hotel, Tara and a 5-star hotel, Sitara for the film production units as well as for tourists. Once inside, there is Hawa Mahal, an intricate miniature Golconda Fort, which is on a hilltop from which one can have a Bird's-eye view of the whole studio. The Film City provides honeymoon packages and banquet halls for corporate retreats and conventions.
Media mughal Ramoji Rao is making a full-fledged Hollywood film, "Quick Sand", not in Los Angeles but in Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. He has recreated the Arizona army base, the barracks, the vehicles, and US military uniforms for the army personnel, and above all, the virtual reality of American landscape. All this in his world-famous Film City.
Tourist Attractions
Some of the places for tourists to visit include: a Japanese garden, the ETV planet (a multi-purpose editing suit), a large pool, artificial waterfalls, intricately carved caves, an airport terminal, hospital set, railway station, churches, mosques and temples, shopping plazas, palace interiors, chateaus, rural complexes, urban dwellings, a winding highway, and model US and European sets. Shops include Parade, a prop-shop, where costumes of actors can be ordered and Shangrila, a nursery that sells exotic plants. This Film city has also 'Ramoji Film Magic' which shows about the behing-the-scene activities involved in movie making.
The vintage Film City coaches shuttle visitors around the studios on a guided tour. There are several settings in the studios which lead the visitors from streets of the Mauryan Empire or the Mughal Empire or even the American Old West. There's also the famous Hollywood sign displayed on the hills at the studios.
A Place both for Tourists and Film-makers
The Film City, spread over 2,000 acres of land studded with hills, vales and lakes, has few parallels as both a tourist attraction and major film-making facility. The city looks like the result of a collaboration between P.C. Sorkar and Vishwakarma and is anytime a match to Universal Studios in Hollywood, brick to brick, gizmo to gizmo. It is a place where reality acquires all the attributes of magic and incredibility. Today, it is the filmmakers' first choice as it is a single-window, press-button facility that opens up an unlimited arena of creativity for every major and minor aspect of film production. To quote some directors and producers, the Film City has "all facilities at one place with latest technology and advanced equipment." Its brochure highlights its motto as 'make the magic happen.' However, magic happens spontaneously without human intervention as though it is the main ingredient of the entire project. Yet, everything is real, from the 50 studio floors, the support systems, outdoor locations to the high-tech laboratories, the wealth of technology, the greenery, and the hillscape.
Shangri-La
What strikes the tourist first is the limitless spread of water-washed foliage of different climes and locales. While these gardens are by design in full bloom throughout the year and are a great visual extravaganza for the tourist, the film-maker saves the effort and expense of taking his equipment, artists and army of technicians to either Kashmir or Switzerland for shooting because that ambience is available literally off the shelf at the Film City. These gardens known as Shangri la are laid in a variety of patterns from formal French gardens to the wilds of Africa. More such marvels are in the pipeline, In the middle of these meandering gardens nestle majestic gazebos of Rajasthani architecture of the Ranas' time.
Shangri-La is the center point that showcases the exclusive flora and fauna at Ramoji Film City. Colorful fountains, rock formations, nurseries and gazebos reflecting Rajasthani architecture add visual extravaganza to your trip. The nurseries at Shangri-La are a goldmine of exotic flowers, plants and shrubs. You can pick up seeds of rare plants or beautiful flowers as a souvenir.
Parade
Parade, Ramoji Film City’s immense storehouse of props and costumes, stocks an unmatched inventory of thousands of objects. From Uzi machine guns to ukulele, Parade stocks authentic replicas of every conceivable item needed for a film shoot. So whether a production is set in the stone-age or in the imagined milieu of the future, Parade will have the necessary props.
Parade, a huge site of interest to both the demanding tourist and the film fraternity. Walking through it is like reliving the experience of browsing the contents of a vast museum. It is a giant storehouse of fabrics, period costumes, furniture, weaponry, knick-knacks, jewellery, pottery, crockery, clocks, furnishings, lamps, chandeliers, wall hangings, paintings, decorative artifacts, wardrobes, footwear etc. In a few minutes, artisans here can assemble a drawing room of the third millennium or a Moghul durbar, a shoe shop or a ramp for a fashion show. Ask for a Scottish kilt or a Japanese kimono or a Kashmiri pheran, it is there. You can design your clothes and experts at the tailoring shop will cut stitch and deliver your fancies overnight.
Eureka
an architectural reproduction of the Mauryan era. Replete with ornamental bridges and replicas depicting the glory of the Mughals, Eureka offers endless fun of the glorious past. While one moment you are walking down memory lane, look around and you will be transported to the Wild West with horses, cowboys and gunfights. If you take the bus tour, then Eureka is your first pit stop and the last one too. In the evening an enchanting program winds up the tour.
The Film City tour takes you through a world full of surprises, scares, and delights. You are taken in special buses first to Eureka, which is the beginning and also the end of the tour. Eureka is an architectural reproduction of a bygone era taking you across ornamental bridges and into the bowels of forts. Get past 72 steps to arrive at Mauryan magic or walk down the replicas of Mughal glory. In contrast is the rugged Wild West replete with horses, cowboys, and gunfights. Looks like a set of Jesse James supplanted from Hollywood. If you are not there first thing in the morning, you will miss the morning welcome ceremony with kings and queens, music and pageant of the likes of Disneyland. An equally enchanting programme in the evening winds up the tour.
Restaurants
“Alampana” serving authentic Mughalai cuisine from the royal house of Awadh.
“Chanakya” for pure vegetarian cuisine, specialising in Thali meals.
“Gunsmoke” for continental-style eating, serving food which sets the palate on fire.
“Ganga Jamuna” caters pure traditional and vegetarian South Indian Thali meals that match your grandmother's culinary expertise.
You have a poolside barbecue appropriately called Sholay, where choicest Kababs are served under a star-spangled sky. Startrack is a mini conference hall with an attached banquet hall called Taj Mahal. For the fitness devotees, there is the Samson and Delilah health club. Now relax at Champion, the clubhouse offering indoor and outdoor recreational facilities. Play Tennis, Squash, Billiards, Table Tennis, and Basketball and also do some Yoga here.
Tara and Sahara are two economy hotels. While Tara is a 24-hour restaurant offering 24-hour room service for 125 elegant rooms of which 84 are air-conditioned, Sahara is a well maintained shared accommodation which accommodates about 700 people with provision for separate arrangements for ladies.
Visit the Film City, in the loving care of 7,500-strong devoted workforce, once or make a film here to experience a reality which is stranger than fiction.
Visit:
www.ramojifilmcity.com
16-04-2011
Source: Wikipedia
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