VK Murthy memorial event at FTII: Digital filmmaking comes with pros and cons

The cinematographers emphasised on the need to understand the changing and emerging ways of acquiring images during the digital era and its impact on the creativity in films

VK Murthy, Guru Dutt, Dadasaheb Phalke Award, CinemaScope, Murthy Testimonial, Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Talk

Veteran cinematographers during a panel discussion on ‘Director’s and Cinematographer’s synergetic collaboration in Indian cinema and its relevance in today’s digital era’ at FTII on Saturday. Express

On the second day of the V K Murthy memorial event, being held at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), a series of programmes were conducted at the institute. These included screening of a documentary depecting Murthy’s life and work, senior cinematographer and director Govind Nihlani reminiscing about his time with Murthy as well as analysis of the lyrical approach adopted by the late cameraperson while shooting the memorable film songs.

In a panel discussion on the subject “Director’s and Cinematographer’s synergetic collaboration in Indian cinema and its relevance in today’s digital era”, Nihlani, A K Bir, Jehangir Choudhary and Dharam Gulati participated while G S Bhaskar moderated the discussion.

The cinematographers emphasised on the need to understand the changing and emerging ways of acquiring images during the digital era and its impact on the creativity in films.

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“The digital filmmaking has liberated the imagination of the filmmakers as the shooting cost and logistics have shrunk. It’s become much easier to shoot the films. Also, digital technique has also brought in revolution in the visuals that can be created,” said Nihlani. Cinematographer A S Kanal said the shift from print to digital has reflected adversely on the shooting discipline.

“The pitfall with digital shooting is that you tend to shoot a lot. Which looks innocuous at the face of it but it proves much expensive in the post production as you have to process more footage, have to put in more man hours in editing it,” said Kanal.

A documentary film Light, Shadow and Me, directed by Manohar Bisht and depecting life of Murthy, was screened during the morning session followed by a talk by Nihlani on “V K, My Mentor”. Three students of FTII also presented papers on different aspects of V K’s cinematography.

Meanwhile, veteran actor and alumnus of FTII, Naseeruddin Shah, visited the campus on Saturday and conducted a three-hour workshop with second semester acting students. He didn’t show up at Murthy event.

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