Sivaji Production

Despite several setbacks during the announcement of the casts, the film began at the AVM Studios situated in Chennai, India on 28 November 2005.[62] The movie's launch, was a surprise event, with only key members of the cast and crew being called for attendance for the event. The lead pair, Rajinikanth and Shriya, a couple of supporting actors, Vivek and Prakash Raj, and members of the crew, Sujatha, Shankar, Prabhu Deva and Vairamuthu were invited by the producers, M. Saravanan and M. S. Guhan.[63] Setting high standards against possible piracy, Shankar announced that all the cast member's mobile phones would be confiscated during the shoots and only a handful of public viewers will be allowed at the shootings.[64] The movie began aiming for a release during Diwali 2006.[65].
Official shooting began at the Ramoji Film City sets in Hyderabad,[66] where the opening scenes were filmed picturizing Rajinikanth and Vivek at Shriya Saran's music store. Surprisingly, these images became the first publicized stills of the movie and were released to all major film websites.[67] News soon broke out that Pattimandram Raja would play the role of Shriya's father and Uma Padmanabhan would play the role of her mother.[68] Other early reports claimed that Rajinikanth would be playing seven roles in the project, to clash with Kamal Haasan's Dasavatharam, which was being shot simultaneously.[69] However since, the rumour has faded out. The film's dates for shooting at the Ramoji Film City were extended by two weeks, delaying Arjun Sarja's film, Vathiyar from having its booked shoot. This adjustment was taken out in order to film crucial climax scenes involving Rajinikanth and Prakash Raj and also to film a song lyrcised by Vairamuthu and choreographed by Prabhu Deva with over five hundred extras. Soon rumours arose that Vathiyar was a lift of Sivaji's story and police interrogations were held however, Vathiyar escaped unscathed.[70] In February 2006, the Sivaji team headed out to Bilbao, Spain to picturize the song titled, Style. However Prabhu Deva, the choreographer could not make the journey as he was busy directing in his directorial debut venture, Pokkiri. Replacing Prabhu Deva, was his brother, Raju Sundaram, who unlike Deva stopped directing his film, Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram, and joined the crew only to be later sacked by the other film's producers.[71] The location in Bilbao was chosen, to avoid major crowd hype and recordings which would have been vulnerable to the Indian public however disaster stroke, when major crowds surrounded the shoots. Within days several photographs and videos were placed and sold over the internet and to magazines, unveiling copyrighted material. Videos of a foreign dance troupe acting as back dancers to the song, Style and Rajinikanth practicing some movements were placed on YouTube[72][73] and images featuring Rajinikanth's hairstyles and costumes as well as Shriya Saran's get-up and a rare image of her carrying a Spanish infant posing were placed on Flickr.[74][75] However these images of the cast, received a negative view from various media sources in Chennai as they made the song picturization seem rather silly. Eventually some of these scenes were removed from the film during its latter post-production works. To avoid further mishap, director Shankar passed a new rule that any member of the cast was not to talk about the film to any outside sources, with Manivannan being the first actor to escape from the media's questions without revealing any key news. Shankar also held a policy that either of the lead pair should not begin to act in another project as soon as they had signed a film with him. Despite all his previous heroines, Madhubala, Nagma, Manisha Koirala, Urmila Matondkar, Aishwarya Rai, Genelia D'Souza and Sadha following these rules, Rajinikanth personally asked Shankar to allow Shriya Saran to act with his son-in-law, Dhanush, whose career was at an all-time low, in his new film, Thiruvilayadal Arambam.[76] While simultaneously shooting in the two projects, Shriya famously but cheekily commented to the media that she was, romancing with the father-in-law in the mornings and romancing with the son-in-law in the evenings.[77] However despite Shankar allowing her to act opposite Dhanush he refused to let Shriya Saran act opposite other major actors such as Kamal Haasan in Dasavatharam[78] and Vijay in Pokkiri.[79]
In August 2006, shooting took place in Binny Mills, in the outskirts of Chennai, attracting several visitors waiting outside the gates, due to Shankar's rules, he would only invite a couple of spectators to view per session, however due to a lack of security over three hundred civilians made their way into Binny Mills causing disruptions, spectator viewings were banned in Binny Mills till the shoot of the schedule there was over.[80] At Binny Mills, key fight sequences and a song was filmed, the sets were made to look like Venice in Italy.[81] However, Kannal Kannan left the project controversially citing differences with the director, he was eventually replaced by Peter Hein, a former member of Kannan's fight troupe.[82] In September 2006, Shankar announced that an actor would play a guest role as a lawyer in the film and Amitabh Bachchan was appraoched for the role. However Bachchan due to health reasons and schedule clashes refused to fly down to the AVM Studios in Chennai to the scenes. He requested that he could do the shooting in either Mumbai or Pune, which were closer to his home, and act in the film within two days. Despite reports that the shoots went ahead, other reports claimed that Raghuvaran replaced the role Amitabh Bachchan was set to play and completed the shooting.[83] In October 2006, the crew moved to Pune to finish off key scenes.[84] But again, disaster arose for the crew. Despite clear warnings of not to take photos or videos, the audience of Pune took images and videos which featured Rajinikanth, Shriya Saran and Vivek outside a bank which was set up as a hospital for the film.[85] Also in Pune, the climax was shot, in which Rajinikanth was spotted with a tonsured head sparking excitement. The Sivaji team then flew off to the United States of America, where they were awarded with special police protection to avoid piracy. Scenes which appear at the beginning of the film and a theme song was shot.[86]It later appeared that another song sequence was set to be held in Japan, as Rajinikanth had a huge fan following there, but the idea eventually did not happen.[87] Various stages of filming carried on throughout the end of the year. In January, 2007, Sify.com interviewed Shriya Saran, who revealed her role was called Tamizh and she appeared in punjabis and traditional Indian clothing throughout the film.[88] During the post-production, the dubbing of voices took place and as Shriya Saran was not a natural Tamil speaker, a dubbing artiste was to be selected. Shankar first zeroed in on Sandhya,[89] another popular actress who was introduced under Shankar's production to dub for the lead female role however she was soon replaced by another actress, Kanika Subramaniam, who at the time was offer-less.[90] A popular film distributor, Subbu Arunachalam dubbed for Suman's character.[91] Recently as of March 2007, sources revealed that Rajinikanth for a song sequences dressed up as the thespians of Tamil cinema, M. G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan, while for the simultaneous Telugu language dubbed version he dressed up as Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao and Chiranjeevi.[92].