Kanmadam

Lal played Johnny. Lal, was in his early career and had difficulty playing his character and decided to abandon the role. Lohithadas persuaded him to continue. His performance received appreciation. For the role of Muthassi, they considered several actresses, but settled on Savithri Amma, who was not an actress. Cinematographer Ramachandra Babu recalls that she had "not seen a movie filming until then, but performed excellently. She enjoyed delivering natural dialogues. It can be seen in the film that she performed like an experienced artist in the scene were she cries remembering her grandson".[6]

The film was shot in 55 days. Filming began in February 1998 two months before the scheduled release date. Palakkad in Kerala was the main location, while some scenes were shot in Madras (now Chennai) in Tamil Nadu and Bombay (now Mumbai) in Maharashtra. The temperature was high during filming, which affected their work. Some of the crew suffered sun burn. Palakkad recorded the highest temperature in Kerala.[6]

The screenplay was incomplete when filming began. Lohithadas wrote the scenes to be shot each day the same morning. Hence, filming often began late. Blessy served as an associate director to Lohithadas in the film. A major part of the film was shot in Kava, near Malampuzha Dam in Palakkad. Their location was a rocky area, it was difficult to set tracks for the camera trolley. They borrowed apple boxes from Merryland Studio in Thiruvananthapuram, originally used by Berta for the film Vanaprastham. Bhanu's house in the film is situated on the top of a giant rock, her workplace – a forge set was created beside it. A quarry in Palakkad was another filming location.[6]

Due to the season, most regions were dry. It was difficult to find a beautiful place for filming the song sequences. Due to time constraints they selected a greener area inside the dried out Malampuzha reservoir. After wrapping the shoot, they went to Madras for post-production. The outdoor scenes including Mohanlal, Siddique, and Lal were shot in Bombay. They returned to Madras to shoot the remaining indoor scenes in the studio, with a few outdoor scenes. A set was created in Madras for the scene where the Bombay police assault Viswanathan inside the lock-up. Film scoring, editing and dubbing were ongoing at the same time at AVM studio. The remaining song sequences were shot in the garden inside the studio.[6] They shifted to Thrissur, Kerala for filming the scene where Viswanathan goes to see his stepfather. They were denied permission at the planned site and switched to another location by evening where they filmed until sunrise.[6]