Ravi Babu (Telugu రవి బాబు) is an actor, director and producer in the Telugu film industry. He has directed 12 films, produced five, acted in some of them and written all of them.
As an actor, he has starred in over 75 films in varied roles as villain, comedian, and comedic villain.
As an assistant to Rajiv Menon Babu had to carry lenses, cameras and boxes. Within a few months, he was promoted as an assistant director and an assistant cameraman. Six months later, Babu enrolled in an advanced cinematography course at the Film and Television Workshops in Rockport, Maine, but quit shortly. He was offered a job as a cameraman by the India Broadcasting Network in New York.
On the job he picked up editing as a skill. His work caught the attention of some executives at Sony and they invited him to do a course at the Sony Institute in San Jose, California.
After the course, Babu did a short stint at TV Asia as ENG producer and also doubled up as cameraman and editor.
Babu's return to India saw producer D. Ramanaidu and director E.V.V. Satyanarayana offer him films, for acting. Acting in movies out of Hyderabad and Bangalore, he kept in touch with his primary passion of film making through advertising.
He was directing television commercials for production house Autmncart. In 1999 he started his own production house, Flying Frogs, initially to produce television commercials but would later become a feature film production house.
As an Actor
Babu's first films were Chala Bagundi directed by E.V.V. Satyanarayana and Sivayya produced by D. Ramanaidu where he played a main villain in both the movies, these were major blockbusters at the box office and offers started pouring in for Ravi Babu as the bad guy. He went on to act in more than 75 films with films like Murari, Anasuya (film), Yavarum Nalam, Dochay Swamy Ra Ra and Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu fetching critical acclaim.
As an Director, writer and producer
In 2002, Babu launched himself as a film-director. His first Tollywood film was Allari which was shot in 45 days on a shoestring budget. The film had a coming-of-age theme and a host of new faces for the cast, Babu created funny urban imagery with colourful visuals and commendable performances by many first-timers set to foot-tapping music by Paul J. Allari was released on 10 May 2002, and it was distributed by Suresh Films.
(This is his official number)
