Rathnavelu proudly recounts his interaction Robert Richardson, one of his idols “He was there in Hyderabad for a workshop. He had inquired about the leading cinematographers of the city and someone suggested my name to him. He met me on the sets of Mahesh Babu’s Sarileru Neekevvaru. We had a nice, hour-long conversation in the makeup room and I displayed my three-minute showreel to him. After watching my shots from Endhiran and Nenokkadine, he was really impressed by my work and exclaimed ‘My god. You should be in Los Angeles, I can be your agent there.’ He also expressed that a lot of cinematographers from the younger generation are not producing work of such quality.”