INTERVIEW

VENU ISC /K B Venu

Even as a final year student at the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India, Venu started his career in cinematography by assisting Shaji N Karun in G Aravindan’s film Pokkuveyil in 1981. Two years later, after being part of some very important movies in the eighties, Venu debuted as an independent cameraman in Lenin Rajendran’s off beat film Prem Nazirine Kanmanilla. A cinematographer who combines technical perfection, mastery and speed, Venu has around hundred films to his credit. The directors he has worked with include Mani Kaul, K G George, Bharathan, Padmarajan, Budhadeb Dasgupta, John Abraham, Bikram Singh, T V Chandran, Rajiv Menon and S J Soorya. He did two English movies—And I Have Promises to Keep (Alan Birkinshaw) and Miss Beatty’s Children (Pamela Rooks). Venu won the national and Kerala State awards for best cinematographer three times each. His only directorial venture, Daya, won him both the national and Kerala State awards for best debut director in 1988. After an interval of two years Venu is back in Malayalam film industry with two films-Bhagyadevatha directed by Sathyan Anthikad and To Harihar Nagar by Lal. In this interview, Venu ISC is sharing his views on cinema.

Let us start from your Film Institute days….

I joined the Institute in 1978. Before joining the institute I had no idea about photography. I hadn’t even taken a photograph. Lots of new lessons awaited me there. FTII is in fact a technical institute. And, there you get an opportunity to watch a number of great movies. In Kerala, watching world class movies those days was the privilege of a chosen few. Screening of movies from the Film Archives once in a while was the only way out. The Institute thus opened a door to the world of movies. We also had the opportunity to interact with a number of luminaries in filmdom who regularly visited the campus as guest faculty.

Who were the prominent among them?

Among cinematographers there were Subrato Mithra who was Satyajit Ray’s cameraman, K K Mahajan, R M Rao, Govind Nihalani, and Krzysztof Zanussi.

But what motivated you to join the FTII? What was your background?

I was not interested that much in photography. But I had interest in movies and books. I did my graduation in Chemistry and was waiting for an opening. That is an awkward stage in anybody’s life. I wrote the FTII entrance examination without much hope to get an admission. Those days I thought it a distant and almost impossible dream to study in the Film Institute. Luckily I got an admission. I wouldn’t have appeared for the entrance test for a second time if I had failed in the first chance. It was because of sheer luck that I got the admission. There were three seats reserved for students from Afro-Asian countries. I was third in the waiting list. The three students admitted in the Afro-Asian quota were from Angola and they couldn’t join the course owing to a war that broke out in their country. So, I got admitted to the Institute along with two others.

Apart from the opportunity to watch great movies what was the nature of your course in the institute?

Ours was an integrated course. We were supposed to learn all aspects of moviemaking -direction, cinematography, editing, sound recording and art direction etc. during the first two years. Specialized studies were restricted to the final year. In my opinion that is the perfect method to learn filmmaking. This curriculum helps us when we actually start our professional life. I don’t know why they stopped the integrated course. I did five films during the course including a thirty minutes long feature in 35 mm as diploma film. Each student was supposed to direct a diploma film. Now the cinematography student need not direct a film; he can work as the cameraman in a fellow student’s diploma movie. Likewise, all students can concentrate on their respective areas and complete the course.

When did you start your career as a professional cinematographer?

Director G Aravindan is a relative of mine. I was in my final year at the Institute when Aravindan started his movie Pokkuveyil, for which Shaji N Karun wielded camera. I debuted as an associate cameraman in that movie. After that I went on to assist him for some more films like Manju, Koodevide, Arappatta Kettiya Gramathil, Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback, Panchavadippalam etc.

Your first independent work was Prem Nazirine Kanmanilla by Lenin Rajendran…

Yes. Even that was supposed to be done by Shaji N Karun. But he couldn’t do it owing to some reason and I took up the mantle.

What was the character that you tried to impart to your work when you started off as an independent cameraman? Was realism your strong point?

I don’t know for sure. I don’t think it’s realism in particular. Sometimes, we need to break the very concept of realism. Certain phenomena need not be portrayed in films and literature exactly as they appear or happen in real life. It all depends on what the film demands. I have tried all kinds of experiments in my works. I think the cinematographer sometimes should act according to his artistic instincts.

It was John Abraham’s path breaking experimental movie Amma Ariyan that made you very famous…

I had done a dozen movies before Amma Ariyan and received a State award too, for K G George’s film Irakal.

Irakal was a really fantastic work. The night scenes were marvelous.

The director’s briefing sometimes influences the cinematographer to a great extent. I had worked with K G George as Shaji N Karun’s assistant in two films-Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback and Panchavadippalam. The first one had a long schedule and I had an opportunity to understand K G George as a filmmaker. He asked me to do Irakal on the basis of this experience. Before we began shooting the film, he told me: What you see in the night should not resemble what you see in daylight. That was enough for me. Some directors are like that. They will impart their concept very quickly to the cinematographer. The cinematographer will realize the director’s requirement all of a sudden. Anyway, K G George’s briefing made all the difference. The movie would have become different had I followed my own ways. The night scenes wouldn’t have become that much notable.

Night scenes dominated day scenes in Irakal. It is a dark film….

May be…There were a lot of night scenes. In many aspects it was a good movie.

That movie flopped in the box office, but those who have seen it had noted its camera work. Was there any specific design you devised for that particular movie?

In the Eighties when this film was made, we had to depend on the limited technology available during the period. So we can’t think much about design and all. But the camera I used for Irakal was the best available at the time. You just mentioned that it was a dark film. In fact the director persuaded me to approach it as a dark film. That is the most important factor. Behind almost all my well appreciated works there was an inspiration- inspiration is a worn out expression-a very subtle and strong briefing by the director. I could carry forward and extend this directive till the end of the movie. That was true with John Abraham’s Amma Ariyan, Bharathan’s Thazhvaram and Prabhu Deva’s Telugu flick Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana.

Your association with P Padmarajan coincides with the golden era of Malayalam movies…

Yes. I have done eight films for Padmarajan. I couldn’t work for two movies because I was abroad.

You have tried to create some fantasy sequences in his swan song, Njan Gandharvan…especially the one in which fireflies surround the heroine…

The credit for that sequence goes to Rajeev Anchal, the art director of the movie. He is a filmmaker now. It’s easier for the director and cinematographer to conceive fantasy sequences; but it is really difficult to execute them. Usually nobody takes up such challenges. Each firefly in the sequence needed one LED bulb each. There should be separate cables for them. If the crew is not cautious, the cables will get entangled. There was always an element of risk. You remember another sequence with butterflies? They were all much lauded by people and technicians alike.

What was the role of the cameraman in creating them?

Of course the camera also had its own role to play. But someone should make such rare objects for me to shoot, right? You can shoot a good script in a bad way, but it’s not easy to shoot a bad script in a fantastic manner. This is true with actors too. The lighting, camera work, art work, editing…all become futile if the actor doesn’t perform well. The cinematographer has the right to demand a better performance from the actor. There are people who object to the DOP’s intervention in the actor’s performance. Such objections come from sheer ignorance.

You have directed a movie. How was the experience? A technician turning to direction…

Daya, my directorial debut was in fact a project of MT Vasudevan Nair. I was its executive director. My responsibility was just to direct the movie. MT was cherishing this project for a long time, and wanted to shoot it outside Kerala since it was based on The Arabian Nights. MT had some health constraints at that time. So I undertook the task. I had the perplexity of a novice while directing Daya. To be on the safer side, I employed the best technicians available at the time. Sunny Joseph was the cameraman.

You didn’t wield the camera? How was that experience?

I faced a problem that all cameramen face if they choose to direct a movie and assign another one to wield the camera. I was used to watching uninterrupted frames through the camera’s eye piece. I felt it disturbing to watch frames from outside, when I started directing. So I used to peep through the camera once in a while to make sure that the frames are composed according to my imagination.

There were no camera monitors at that time…

Yes…that makes a lot of difference….the periods before and after the advent of camera monitors. Those days, the director had to trust the cameraman completely. Nobody really knew what exactly had been shot until it was projected for the first time. The cameraman was the total authority and that was a big responsibility. Now the DOP just need to listen to the director once the shot is taken. If he says OK, it’s okay for me too. I remember my experience with Mani Kaul in the movie Mati Manas. That was my third film as an independent cameraman. Mani Kaul is a director who believes that a camera is enough for making a movie. The shots were all complex and there were only a few artists. Whenever the director asked me whether the shot was okay or not, I was confused. I was a relatively inexperienced new comer and he, a veteran. How can I understand what exactly was in his mind? The director can find out visible errors in the frame when he watches from outside. But he cannot do anything about the subtle problems unless he looks through the camera. Now with the coming of monitors the DOP is relieved of a severe tension during the shoot. Monitors have made life better for cinematographers.

But their supremacy is lost…

Why do cameramen need supremacy? I believe in the totality of a movie. You don’t have to fix responsibilities or count the merits and demerits of various departments of a movie while watching it. It is a futile exercise. I used to be in the award committee of the South India Cinematographers Association once and had the opportunity to watch a lot of Malayalam movies. There were some bad movies. But they contained some finer aspects. Now, we are forced to find out who is responsible for that part. I think this is quite unnecessary while watching a movie. I want to emphasize that actor is the most important factor in any movie. All efforts will be in vain if the performance is not up to the mark.

What about the director?

Director is the most important person. No doubt about that. The director should have the true sense about the movie he is making. He is the one who makes the actor perform well.

Bharathan Padmarajan and K G George….You have worked with these three filmmakers who tried to build a bridge between mainstream and art house movies. And their movies were most expected by the audience those days.

They are all wonderful filmmakers who made really different movies at that time. K G George is technically more perfect in the trio because he has a film school background. Padmarajan’s strong point was his excellent scripts. You just said the audience waited for their films. I remember having seen the very first show of movies on the day of release, with some of these directors; especially with Padmarajan. He used to be tense when the audience didn’t respond properly at certain junctures. I mean, they too had their own worries about how the audience will receive their works. But there was a difference in their approach. They never did movies merely to entertain the audience. They did what they believed was right. And they believed that what they liked will be appreciated by the people. Those directors, who were active in the Eighties, they all did movies according to their convictions, there’s no doubt about that.

About Bharathan, the painter in him….

Painting skills have nothing much to do with filmmaking. It’s just a myth. It’s almost like believing that painters can eventually become art directors in cinema. Bharathan was a painter and that was another reflection of his artistic mind. That is not enough for making films. There are people who say that his frames resembled paintings. Cinema is a different medium. You can make use of your knowledge of painting in cinema; but that alone cannot make you a filmmaker. Bharathan had some other strong qualities as a filmmaker. For example, his selection of locations was perfect. He had the rare ability to create strange spaces. Bharathan’s movies flopped whenever he worked on badly written scripts. He might also have failed to realize that those were weak scripts.

Bharathan could make a stamp on any scripts he worked with. For example, Thazhvaram, written by MT Vasudevan Nair. But Bharathan redefined the typical MT script. Even the location was a character in the movie.

Bharathan and MT found out that location and made a phone call to me. It was in Attappadi, a tribal area in Kerala. MT had tried to create a different atmosphere in the story almost akin to that of the Westerns, the Cowboy movies popular in the Nineteen Forties and Fifties. I tried to create that kind of a visual atmosphere, with extreme long shots and all. Those were the days when back light was profusely used in popular movies. But in this movie, we insisted on natural lights. We wanted to create the real mornings, afternoons and nights.

We were talking about John Abraham’s Amma Ariyan and deviated from the subject..

Amma Ariyan is a unique movie. I have no doubt about that. The way it was conceived, made, screened….everything about the movie is unique. I am proud that I could be part of that film and could shoot it. Amma Ariyan was a one-man show by John Abraham. Only John could complete such a movie in that particular manner. He boldly discarded all conventions in film production. Aravindan’s Pokkuveyil was such a production too. But even that production had an order. John didn’t even follow an order. We both slept in a house belonging to a person in the production team with meager food and all. I didn’t find it strange because I too am an ordinary person. But I don’t know whether I will do another film in such an atmosphere. I did Amma Ariyan because John could convince me about the need to do it. After this movie at least twenty persons have approached me with similar projects, but I couldn’t accept them. Reason is simple. They couldn’t convince me.

How was your experience with Buddhadev Dasgupta?.

When I did Bagh Bahadur, Buddhadev Dasgupta was not very famous, especially in the international scenario. His movies had cleanly orchestrated shots. We did some more films after that…Lal Darja, Swapner Din, Tahader Katha etc. But at the same time I was doing commercial hits in Malayalam, like those comedies directed by Siddique-Lal duo.

Which stock do you prefer?

I have done more than 100 movies. Almost all of them, barring one or two, were shot in Kodak. I insist on it because it is the best available stock, the whole world knows this. Kodak people themselves know that they are the best in the world. Right from the beginning of my career I am used to it. Shaji N Karun with whom I started off as an assistant was using this stock. Kodak is a stock with lot of “patience”…Kodak pardons the cinematographer for his minor faults, to an extent.

Why didn’t you try anything on the directorial side after Daya?

I didn’t make a very earnest effort. Not that I have quit it altogether. Lots of effort should be put in making a movie. It’s not that simple.