Within a span of weeks, production designer Banglan has had two major releases, but in starkly different genres, and two different languages. His first was Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra and the second one was Kantara: Chapter 1.

In an interview with CE, talking about the research that was conducted for the film, Banglan said, "I studied the landscape, trees, flowers, and local cuisine; every detail mattered. We were creating a 1,000-year-old world. For a production designer, there were no references except paintings and stories."

But along with the research came the efforts to build the world, which had a clear vision. "Everything, the tones of clothing and the palette of nature, was blended to be organic and earthy. Seventy per cent of the film was outdoors, thirty per cent inside. Every prop was handcrafted; we didn’t outsource. We had workshops and factories. Around 600 people from across Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, landed in Kundapura, crafting each stone, each fibre, each brass detail for months," said Banglan.

Rishab Shetty's Kantara: Chapter 1 has become the highest grossing Indian film in Australia.