A fingernail may be tiny. But SS Rajamouli believes it can tell you something about the size of an idea.
At the Don’t Trouble the Trouble event, Rajamouli brought up an interesting comparison between architecture and cinema. If an architect can draw the basic outline of an entire building on his fingernail, it shows that the structure is already clear in his mind. The same principle, he suggested, applies to filmmaking.
A 2.5-hour movie may eventually have dozens of scenes, characters, twists, emotions and action blocks. But Rajamouli’s test is surprisingly small: Can you tell the entire story in two or three lines?
If the answer is yes, the story has a clear core. That does not mean a two-line story automatically becomes a great film. The screenplay still has to build the characters, conflict and emotional journey. But the foundation needs to be strong enough to carry all those layers.
And that is probably the most interesting part of Rajamouli’s analogy. A film can become massive on screen, but its original idea should not need to be massive to explain.
The film can be 2.5 hours long. But its core should still fit into a few lines. That, perhaps, is the beauty of cinema.
Rajamouli’s Story Test:
If you can tell a 2.5-Hour story in 2-3 lines, then it’s a good film.
– @ssrajamouli pic.twitter.com/Go9YrXTXjc
— M9 NEWS (@M9News_) September 28, 2026
