Senior directors like Raghavendra Rao and Dasari Narayana Rao used to maintain two to three units at a time with highly qualified and enthusiastic assistants at their behest to complete films in less number of days. If KRR was shooting a film with NTR and Krishna at the same time, he always used to plan that their dates won’t clash. Later, he used to consider the merit of the shots and scenes. If it really did not recover his presence, he used to shoot at some other place, for the same film, an important scene or shot or song and then ask his assistants to shoot the less important shots. Even if they had to shoot NTR or Krishna or ANR.
Even Dasari used to follow the same. In fact, he used to leave even major scenes on his assistants, if the film did not involve stars who command his presence like ANR. He used to make 14 films in a year while working round the clock and managing like this. But these days the number working days have gone up to 125 days to 140 days on any film. Even Chiranjeevi said that the number of working days on a film should be brought down to double digits. This could mean more assurance on what we are making and revision at a later date, if required. As every filmmaker is talking about cost-cutting measures like expenditure on luxuries, salary reduction, the reduction number of working days should also be considered. What say?