For every project, Rathnavelu has a psychological approach for conceiving visuals. He took a month's time prepping for Sye Raa which involves conceptualizing the look and feel of the film, sourcing visual references, locations and so on.

"There are composite colour palettes in the film. For the scenes set in London, we went for a desaturated tone to portray the cold-blooded nature of British imperialists. The tone changes completely once they land in India with saturated colours and warm hues, since Indian culture personifies warmth and hospitality. Once the battle portions begin, we deployed cyan blue tone. Towards the end, we opted for cyan green palatte since the sequences must personify death. The choices are based on colour psychology.”

Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy was predominantly shot in the Rayalaseema area- Kurnool and Kadapa, which. The sequences involving British personnel were shot in Chennai’s Fort St. George. For shooting a period film, the makers had chalked out the do’s and don’t factors “For instance, we cannot show any cement houses or machine-cut jewellery during those days.”