The Oscar winner comes to town

No prizes for getting who it is!

Yes, thats the man who made the world realize the power of 'Om' with his acceptance speech at the Kodak theater on 29 March 09.

The Oscar winner who told history is being transfered..

The man himself, Resul Pookutty was here at Thrissur Town hall for an 'Audio workshop' organised by Chetana Media Institute in association with Graftii, Kerala chapter.

(Graftii is the alumni association of graduates from FTII, Pune.)

The function started late by 2 hours, presumably because you don't get an Oscar winner around you every time and no one spares the chance to welcome them.

So after a string of 'Sweekaranams', Resul was there finally. It took another 45 min to get through the formalities of functions, inaugurated by Mr. John Shankaramangalam, Resul's 'guru' at FTII and presided by K.R. Mohanan, President of Kerala Chalachithra Academy and Father Benny Benedict of Chetana. Many of FTII freinds where also present on the occasion. There was a splendid small signature film presented, paying a tribute to the legends of cinema and depicting role of sound in film making. Besides, there was also a small intro clip supposedly about Rusel Pookutty.

As many emphasized, it was also moment which gave a 'sound' to the myriad sound technicians who work silently behind the scenes to bring in life to the visual frames on screen. Previously, sounds were not of much significance in film making. It was all about creating a visual impact on the screen to entice the audience into a make-belief system. Speibergs 'Duel' is said to be the best that shows the role of sounds as a contributor for eternal movie-experience. Sound tracks at the time of Satyajith Ray were merely a part of story narration and as such never played a significant role in scripting.

In modern times, it is impossible to create a difference without having knowledge of editing or audiography or cinematography for the script writer. Its a wonderful idea to be thought upon. Back home, I did try out putting some sounds into my experimental script, it lead to altogether different dimensions. When a sound is followed, you land upon new avenues which simply blow up the visual impact it would have created otherwise. For all the subtle nuances that is magnified on the screen by clever cinematography and direction, suddenly, a proper sound attached to that creates nothing less than a brilliant cinematic sensation. Given a chance, this would be a real eye-opener for Malayalam scripts which is in its reasonably old fashioned ways of movie production. Sync sound recording is still rare and the more we concentrate on what will be the sounds encountered in the scene, the process of script making is a more thrilling experience apart from the emotion discharge it provides through the characters that freely roam around us.

Not so surprisingly, there is a four fold increase in the number of applicants for audiography at FTII after the Oscars, from Kerala alone! About 80% of the sound technicians from FTII are 'mallus', Curious facts I couldn't help without sharing !! Wouldn't it be a coincidence that the all-conscious 'mallus' excel in technical areas of film making (like audiography and cinematography) that requires the deepest of observation and dedication for perfection.

Once he got the stage for himself, the fist thing Resul did was a deep apology for being late and testing our limits of patience to a great extent. ( The anxious spectators were left to view 'Fast and Furious 4' in the mean time ) He held no airs of an Oscar winner and wasn't he the next door mallu guy either! English sounded at length, through out.

Well, hardly you can call this a work-shop, it was more of an interaction session constrained by time.

Pookuty described about the general classification of the sounds that is used in motion picture, or popular filmdom which he considers to be his domain. A brief description of sounds(for those interested)

First is the usual straight forward sound, the dialog's rendered by characters. In live sound recording, it is important to comprehend the behavior of the actors to complement the reactions of visual impact with sound. The sounds emissions must be expected by understanding the story and the state of character and their possible reactions that come out as acting.

Second is the ambiance. The environment that takes the audience to the scene of happening, There are various layers of sound embedded around us. While generating an ambiance, these embedded sounds has to be first understood, then segregated and then applied sanguinely to give an enthralling experience.

Third are the effects. Sound effects are specially generated to give a an extra punch to the visual treat. There had been films which has survived purely due to effects. Say, when you are told to imagine a car 100 years from now, you can throw up a design of car powered by unconventional source of energy, but how would that sound like? Effects have evolved in a great manner. In earlier times, to generate sound of rain in studio, microphone was kept under a paper and sugar was dropped over it. These have been extensively replaced with advent of technology. Today you can break a single sound into million times and get a single tone. A set of geometrical figures can be generated with this single tone and help generate effects. The explosions, speeding cars all use effects.

Fourth are termed as folly-sounds. These are again linked to the characters behavior. Apart from dialog, certain reaction like a movement, creates sound. To exemplify an instance, in 'Pazhashiraja' the flap sound of 'kodi mundu' during walking of characters was regenerated in Mumbai studios by getting people into costumes used while shooting. Similarly the bows and arrows made of bamboo and coir where brought from Wayanad to studios. These help in building strong characters that help distinguish them on the screen. There were conscious efforts in the film to make Mamooty's and Sharathkumars character to have a super-life image by putting in these.

Apart from these, there is also the music, not just the music of a soothing song used to telling a passage of story or engraving an emotion deep, but the background score as well, that again creates enhanced impressions in audience mind. This has more to do with maintaining an emotional quotient balance of the scene. This is an interaction of the music director, the sound engineer and the director to decide on what would be appropriate for a particular scene.

Apart from these, from what was shown in the signature clip, even silence is a powerful medium of movie expression. After all, it is the silence of sound that was resonated in the Kodak theater on that day.

Once sounds captured, then we move on to studios for the sound-mixing part, that is usually linked with editing process, post-production works in general.

Talking about effects, 'Pazhashiraja' is first film in Malayalam to have EFX sound format, unfortunately our theaters are not equipped enough to let us hear that. So its the digital dolby version,the 6-channel sound track, that is released in Kerala. The major difference is the additional speaker provided at the rear side of audience, so that sound doesn't move around you, it virtually goes through the audience from back to front. Kerala theaters do not have separate speakers to re-produce this additional sound track for us. Luckily, we have moved on from the solo sound track, sound coming from the center of image, format to dolby digital.

There was also mention about work ethics, a dis-agreement with Danny Boyle on Slumdog Millionare sets. A certain scene was o.k.yed by Danny and Pookutty had to object it which he thought was right on his part as a technical professional to say because the sound format was not good enough.To quote, "..it was a question of respecting a co-workers judgement, especially when you are the sole Indian member heading a department in a predominantly foreign crew." For a take to be perfect, it had to equally good in terms of performance, visual and sound elements. To judge it right is essentially a sensory judgement of people involved.

So that was the happenings of the day in less than 2 hours space of time. Couldn't get any good snaps, putting whatever captured.

An Oscar-winner certainly deserved an autograph to be asked, I didn't have a good paper to get that!!

Resul tried hard to create the sound-mixing process of a scene in reel 3 of 'Pazhashiraja', alas technical snag didn't allow that to happen.

The software was something different and the sound recorded in the scene was always out of phase and to add more, the system rebooted after every 10 minutes.

So we were destined to miss the opportunity.

The guest had to move on to his next destination, inauguration of a studio of Chetana with advanced facilities at Kanapuram. Chetana is really putting up some nice facilities for budding film makers in Thrissur. Then there was also a 'pouravali sweekaranam' with 'ghoshayatra' by 4.30 in the evening form Parmekavu to town hall along with ministers and others from film fraternity.

One can never forget this acceptance speech at the Oscars by an ordinary man achieving extra-ordinary heights for his technical perfection, remembering his nation at those ever-lasting moments of glory..

"I come from a country and a civilization that gave us the universal word. That word is preceded by silence, followed by more silence. That word is Om. I dedicate this award to my country. Thank you, Academy, this is not just a sound award, this is history being handed over to me,''

Jai-ho.