Why Bollywood filmmakers are spending generously on a song shoot

With producers these days not hesitating to spend humongous amounts on shooting Bollywood songs the budget allocated for the picturisation of a song can safely be called an indicator of the filmrsquos overall budget With the makers of the Farah Khandirected Happy New Year allegedly spending R7 crore mdash with director Farah Khan hinting it could be more mdash on a powerpacked song these numbers are once again under the scanner hitlist points out some songs whose shooting cost a whopperMalangRs 6 crore Estimated budgetFilm Dhoom 3 2013Director Vijay Krishna AcharyaLowdown The song was shot over two months and it featured around 200 gymnastic performers who were specially flown down from the USA for the shoot They rehearsed over a period of 20 days in Mumbai The costumes for the song were elaborate and were also sourced from the USTha karkeRs 5 crore Estimated budgetFilm Golmaal Returns 2008Director Rohit ShettyLowdown The song featured Sanjay Dutt Ajay Devgan Fardeen Khan Bipasha Basu and Mugdha Godse dancing on a beach in Goa Narendra Rahurikar created the sets True to Rohitrsquos style of filmmaking the extravagant song mdash that was shot over six days mdash featured expensive cars and bikesChammak challoRs 3 crore Estimated budgetFilm RaOne 2011Director Anubhav SinhaLowdown Picturised on Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor mdash with a big troupe adorned in traditional wears in the background mdash dancing together at a lavish set created at Yash Raj Studios the song had Grammy Awardwinning Akon providing the vocals as wellKilimanjaroRs 4 crore Estimated budgetFilm Robot 2010Director Shankar Lowdown Picturised on Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai the song sequence was filmed at Machu Picchu in Peru making it the first Indian video to be picturised at this Inca site The song was choreographed by Raju Sundaram brother of choreographerturneddirector PrabhudevaAzeem o shaan shahenshahRs 25 crore Estimated budgetFilm Jodhaa Akbar 2008Director Ashutosh GowarikerLowdown Choreographer Chinni Prakash shot this song on a grand scale as it featured over 400 trained dancers and a 2000 strong crowd Around 350 dancers travelled to Karjat from Mumbai on a daily basis during the shoot schedule which lasted for over two weeksSalaam aayaRs 35 crore Estimated budgetFilm Veer 2009Director Anil Sharma Lowdown Featuring 650700 junior artistes it took 11 days to finish shooting for this song Sprawling sets were constructed for this number and welldetailed costumes were designed not just for the leading stars Salman Khan and Zarine Khan but also for the extras performing in the backgroundDola reR2 crore Estimated budgetFilm Devdas 2002Director Sanjay Leela BhansaliLowdown Featuring performances by Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai this song had some ostentatious clothing on display in fact the sarees featured in the song cost lakhs Going by the filmrsquos budget mdash it is said to have cost R50 crore to make mdash this lavishly shot song should not surprise usParty all nightRs 5 crore Estimated budgetFilm Boss 2013Director Anthony DrsquoSouzaLowdown Until last year it was the costliest Bollywood item number to be made Around 600 foreign models were hired as background dancers for this song that was choreographed by Sumit Dutt and Raju Khan Starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha the song was sung by rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh