for the role, as he was impressed with the script and role. However, he also could not take up the role, due to his ongoing projects in Tollywood. Pre-production Art director Jacki, worked on the film's production design. The set design for Vada Chennai began nearly six years ago and before the beginning of the production, Jacki designed huge sets resembling the Central Jail and had made the team cost . The team initially decided to shoot the portions of the film in a real jail set in Rajamahendravaram, but as the prison portions may become lengthy during the course of the film, they decided to construct a huge set resembling the Madras Central Prison at the Binny Mills in Chennai. He visited the original location and also met a prisoner from Madras Prison to give inputs for the location. The construction initially planned for 43 days, was completed within 40 days. Later, the team had erected another set resembling the Nagoorar Thottam and for that design, the team had spent 20 days. Then, as most of the film being set in the slum area, the team did a miniature model of the design which they planned to replicate in real. To reflect the timeline change (1970–2000), the team went through an extensive research and collected every minute details of the products, including furnitures, materials, home appliances, posters, cigarettes, advertisements and essentials used, which the team had considered as "the biggest challenge". Amritha Ram worked on the costumes for the film. A report from Sify claimed that the film is the "costliest film ever made in Dhanush's career" as Jacki had stated that the work on the production design escalated the costs in the film. Filming The film's production began on 22 June 2016, after multiple postponements. The first schedule of the shooting was held at a huge set resembling the Madras Central Prison which was erected at Binny Mills in Chennai. The shoot continued throughout mid-2016 in North Chennai for thirty days, with scenes depicting the 1970s shot. The production was briefly delayed as Vetrimaaran sought to get his previous film, Visaranai, ready for nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, which prompted Dhanush to move on to work on his other projects: his directorial debut Pa Paandi, Velaiilla Pattadhari 2 and his international debut film, The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir. The break between schedules also meant that Vetrimaaran