Vishnu Rao

Vishnu Rao is an Indian cinematographer, best known for his work in Feature Films, Web Series, Commercials, Music Videos and underwater cinematography.

Vishnu Rao was born and raised in Mumbai, India and was educated at St. Mary’s (ISC) school. He completed his graduation from Elphinstone college earning degrees in economics and sociology. After which he finished his post graduation from the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune where he studied Motion Picture Photography.

Early career

After graduating from the Film and Television Institute of India, his first job was as second unit cinematographer on the music video Vande Matharam (1998) directed by Bharat Bala. He then worked as camera assistant on Merchant Ivory’s film, Cotton Mary (1999).

He has been working as director of photography since 2000. He has shot several feature films, advertising films, numerous music videos, corporate films, documentaries and a few short films. Being a licensed scuba diver he has also shot underwater sequences for many projects as an underwater cinematographer.

His first feature film was Bhootnath (2008), starring Amitabh Bachchan, Shahruk Khan and Juhi Chawla, was produced by Ravi Chopra under BR Films. Since then he has gone on to shoot several mainstream successful Hindi feature films. The action film Prince (2010) was produced by Tips Industries.

Aashiqui 2 (2013) with director Mohit Suri was a huge critical and commercial success. Vishnu Rao and Mohit Suri collaborated on three more films after this - Ek Villain (2014), Hamari Adhuri Kahani (2015) and the adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s book Half Girlfriend (2017).

Dhadak (2018), produced by Dharma Productions, debuted Janhvi Kapoor, directed by Shashank Khaitan.

Good Newwz (2019), also produced by Dharma Productions, starring Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Kiara Advani and Diljit Dosanjh was a phenomenal commercial success. The Big Bull (2021), produced by Ajay Devgn FFilms was inspired by the life of Harshad Mehta.

His first foray into OTT steaming came with the web series Sultan of Delhi (2023), directed by Milan Luthria, produced by Disney+Hotstar.