Choreographing Muddy was the biggest challenge, reveals director Dr Pragabhal

Muddy, India's first mud race film, was in the making for more than five years. The film is now ready for release on Friday 10 December in six languages — Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and English.

First-time director Dr Pragabhal revealed at a virtual press conference that he chose mud racing as the theme because he wanted to give the audience an unique experience.

"The choreography design for Muddy was the biggest challenge as there were no other films to refer to," the director said. "Therefore It took five years of research to start the film."

Pragabhal said the screenplay was written with a focus on developing the characters. After the screenplay was completed, the makers could not see any of the established artistes playing those characters, so they decided to go in for new faces. "They were given training in mud racing for two years and national-level mud racers too are part of the film," Pragabhal said.

The film's music has been scored by Ravi Basrur of KGF: Chapter 1 (2018) fame. This is Basrur's first Malayalam project. The music director said films made in South India get categorized into four sections by language. "Now I am trying to bring all the South Indian films together as one and treat them as Indian films through a big canvas," he said.

The composer said there are several limitations to background music in films in which dialogues are important. "Muddy gave me more space to work in the film. The cinematographer and editor have presented their skills and I have only given support to the visuals."

Cinematographer KG Ratheesh found the film challenging to shoot. “Though it was difficult to shoot at the location for more than three hours, it was a great experience for me,” he said.

Muddy stars newcomers Yuvan Krishna, Ridhaan Krishna, Amith Sivadas Nair, Renji Panicker and Anusha Suresh in the lead roles. Prema Krishnadas has produced the film under the banner PK 7.