Quick Gun Murugan

This was no shot in the dark. For decades, Bollywood has been heading down south to pick up cinematographers. Director Guru Dutt found his right hand man in V K Murthy Kaagaz ke Phool, 1959, A Vincent did Dil Ek Mandir 1963, and, more recently, Santoshi grabbed hold of Santosh Sivan considered the fastest in the country for the 1995 Bobby-Twinkle debut vehicle Barsaat it won Sivan a Filmfare Award. Last year, Farhan Akhtar got Ravi K Chandran to shoot his Dil Chahta Hai, while his mother Honey Irani has Ravi Verman working on her first directorial venture.

Vincent, one of the first cinematographers from the south to win a Filmfare Award in 1974 for Prem Nagar, says it8217;s because cameramen from the south have 8216;8216;faster turnover8217;8217;. 8216;8216;I never ever took a chair to the sets because sitting is a waste of time,8217;8217; says the man who shot Dil Ek Mandir with Raj Kumar and Meena Kumari in 28 days flat.

Anand who also shot Josh and Nayak wrapped up his Rs 20-crore The Legend8230; in five months, Tirru took 86 days for 1931 Shaheed. Both worked 12-15 hour shifts, no breaks. Tirru went to Mumbai with his own team of 20 because he didn8217;t want to work with new people, not when he was trying to beat Anand. 8216;8216;My 20 did the work of a 100,8217;8217; he proclaims.

But though neither film did too well at the box office, Anand says The Legend8230; was a shot in the arm for Santoshi. 8216;8216;In his decades-long career in the cinema industry, Santoshi has never managed to complete a movie in less than a year,8217;8217; he points out.

Tirru pulled off quite a few surprises himself. Especially when 1931 Shaheed director Guddu Dhanoa scheduled a two-day shoot for a particular scene and Tirru completed it in one-and-a-half hours! 8216;8216;We had to show Bobby Deol leaving home at night, travelling in a tonga at 5.30 am, then getting into a train at 6 in the morning. I had both the travel and the railway scene ready by about 4 pm, shot the 5.30 am scene at 5.30 pm because I had the right lighting, then zoomed over to the railway shot.8217;8217; Ninety minutes later, it was all over. 8216;8216;After that, they would challenge me to finish everything in less than a tenth of the allotted time!8217;8217;

Everybody on the sets was shocked at how Tirru managed it, except the Director of Photography himself. 8216;8216;It is just a question of doing your homework,8217;8217; says Tirru.

It might be called the P C Sriram syndrome. 8216;8216;Every cinematographer in Chennai, and even across the country, considers him the master,8217;8217; says Anand. So much so that before he died, Subroto Mitra the late Satyajit Ray8217;s regular cameraman before they fell out told one of his assistants that if he wanted to learn cinematography, he should work under Sriram.

8216;8216;Name one cinematographer in the country, or even the world, who gets louder applause than the hero. But you only need to go to a Chennai cinema playing a Sriram movie to hear the audience whistling and cheering for him. As far as they are concerned, he is why they are at the first day first show,8217;8217; says Anand.

8216;8216;But even I am the slowest, worst cinematographer in the world if I don8217;t do my homework,8217;8217; says Sriram. Surprisingly, the man with films like Nayagan, Apoorva Sagotharargal, and the recent Madhavan-starrer Alai Payuthey to his credit, who screened a three-minute film for former US President Bill Clinton, and whose Kamal Hassan starrer Kurithipunal was once India8217;s entry for the Oscars, has never done a Hindi film. 8216;8216;I don8217;t know the language and unless I do, I won8217;t get into it,8217;8217; Sriram says matter-of-factly.

But the language factor has never bothered Bollywood or the cinematographers. 8216;8216;Why should it? They tell us everything in English and then it8217;s up to us. Language should never be a barrier to a cameraman,8217;8217; says Anand. Santoshi says that though Anand didn8217;t know the language, he added so much subtlety to the movie that one cannot make out he hadn8217;t a clue what the actors were saying. 8216;8216;In The Legend8230;, Bhagat Singh has a friend who betrays him. Anand suggested that every time he showed up on screen, we tilt the camera down and to a side to make him look wavering, away from the group. Simple. Effective. What does language have to do with it? It8217;s talent,8217;8217; Santoshi is unequivocal in his praise.

Chandran is convinced that it helps when you are trained under the likes of director Mani Ratnam Dil Se, Roja. 8216;8216;He shoots very fast, his units are small, and he uses a lot of natural light.8217;8217;

Three things that take a load off the budget, something that keeps producers and directors happy. Chandran says it8217;s also the reason why producers don8217;t mind putting up cinematographers from the south and their assistants in five-star hotels: because they know it8217;s going to pay off. 8216;8216;When you work with no money, not even enough to block off roads to shoot a travelling scene, you learn to shoot from on top of a moving Maruti van on hire, with streetlights and Chinese lanterns. You get confident that you can do magic, even when you don8217;t have any props,8217;8217; says Chandran.

He admits he also 8216;8216;hates gimmicks8217;8217;, which is why in the yet-unfinished Hrithik Roshan-starrer Forrest Gump-meets-space-age flick Koi Mil Gaya, he spliced the cost and complications by just using China bulbs that gave him the same effect as more complicated lighting.

8216;8216;Most cinematographers from Bollywood freak out on generators and lights. We always keep cost in mind,8217;8217; says Anand, who shot the National Award-winning Thenmavim Kombathu on a very tight budget in 32 days the movie ran in cinemas for five times as long.

Director of Photography Ajayan Vincent8217;s son reasons that when it comes to lights it is cinematographers from the south who are willing to experiment. 8216;8216;There are two styles and we8217;re willing to try both. In the first, there is a light source, like maybe a window.8217;8217; Ajayan used this method in Mani Shankar8217;s 16 December, where he used just an overhead light in several scenes to give the film a very stylised look. 8216;8216;The second, the easy way out, is where there is no source 8212; this is glamour lighting. It makes heroines look gorgeous, but there is no mood. The movie feels plastic.8217;8217;

According to Anand, when it comes to lights, it was again Sriram who set the trend. 8216;8216;He gave us the strong backlight and the soft fill technique. Everybody does it today, but he started it,8217;8217; he says.

What also helped southern cinematographers was the migration of a number of Mumbai8217;s best to the ad film world, simply because there was more money in it and more professionalism. 8216;8216;Things have changed in the last few years,8217;8217; says Anand. 8216;8216;But earlier, Bollywood was so hero-centric that it frustrated cinematographers. They would end up waiting whole mornings for heroes who showed up only in the late afternoon, and then tackle their tantrums.8217;8217; Things apparently got so bad that in many films, the over-the-shoulder and wide angle shots were filmed without the hero. 8216;8216;They used dummies. When the actual hero showed up they would shoot the close-ups so the movie would look authentic. That8217;s why the cinematographers opted out. And we were roped in,8217;8217; says Anand.

But Honey Irani stresses that speed is a non-issue if there is no quality. 8216;8216;They just have to be good.8217;8217; Which was why she picked Ravi Verman for her film starring Amitabh Bachchan and Preity Zinta. Verman, a runaway steward-turned-office boy, shot his first film 8212; the Malayalam Santham 8212; in 12 days and won the Best Cinematography award at a French film festival in 2001. Irani8217;s project was next for this Chennaiite, a straight jump from a Rs 16-lakh budget to one of Rs 4 crore. 8216;8216;Ravi Chandran shot my son Farhan8217;s movie and he was excellent. I asked him to recommend someone and he pointed to Verman. I watched Santham and that was enough to give him a call,8217;8217; says Irani.

8216;8216;What is so complicated?8217;8217; asks another DP from Chennai, Jeeva, who has worked with Sunny Deol for Dillagi and Priyadarshan for Hera Pheri, but walked out of Santoshi8217;s Pukaar after eight schedules because 8216;8216;it was just taking too long8217;8217; and he likes to 8216;8216;wrap up a movie in eight months max8217;8217;. 8216;8216;They have the money, they come for the skill.8217;8217;