Ramoji Film City Hyderabad

Ramoji Film City (RFC) is the world’s largest integrated film studio complex at over 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) of land . 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 South-East of Hyderabad. The Outer Ring Road Phase 2 has acquired lands at the entrance and is set to intersect the city

History

Film producer Ramoji Rao, head of the Ramoji Group, opened the facility in 1996. The creation of the Ramoji Film City was an outcome of the Group's association with Indian cinema through Usha Kiran Movies, its dedicated film production house, which has produced over 80 films in several languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi and Bangla

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

A special Coach which takes visitors around the studios

Every year, the studios attracts over a million tourists, and the complex creates revenues in billions of rupees (INR)  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.

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.