Rajamouli worked with Sabu Cyril on the two Baahubali movies and RRR. Sabu's production design was ambitious for the three movies. For Magadheera, Rajamouli's magnum opus until Baahubali, S Raveender was the production designer. The director has changed production designers as the scale of his movies kept growing.
For Varanasi, he is working with Mohan Bingi, someone with no star image like Sabu. Bingi has previously worked on Adipurush, his biggest Indian movie project before Varanasi came his way.
Now, by no stretch of imagination was Adipurush a groundbreaking movie in terms of visuals or imagination. It was produced using motion capture technology. Rajamouli must be relying on Bingi because he comes with research-based knowledge, something that a mythological time-travel movie like Varanasi needs. When detailing is what is expected of a production designer, subject matter expertise counts. Probably, Sabu Cyril is not as knowledgeable as Mohan Bingi for the genre of Varanasi.
