Innum oar iravu
S.R.Kathiir is the cinematographer of Tamil movies Tamil M.A. and Subramaniyapuram. This is Kathiir’s second post on PFC. You can read his first post here.
“Innum oar iravu” – was my favorite song to shoot after “paravaye engu irukirai” in katradhu tamil, and it is the only song we had in hand in a complete recorded format before we went for shooting, rest of the songs were been given to us as just tunes with not more on musical part done…so we had no choice to keep us charging hearing “innum oar iravu”… more over thats a special song in lyrics part too… to be honest as a DOP to get the mood of the film, this song helped me a lot… Ram and me have never compromised in search of virgin location for this film. As this song is all about Prabhakar’s ‘on the run’ we just had a open mind to shoot it anywhere that looks interesting and supportive to improve its visual… Half of the song was shot near cudappah in andhra.
that was an interesting experience. After finishing our first schedule, we were waiting for Jeeva’s dates. At that time Ram asked me to search for some interesting locations near by chennai. Then i came with an idea to go cudappah, just with a vague idea that due to cudappa stone’s colour there may be some grey hues filled locations… so i said Ram that no sure, we may come with empty hands, and a still photographer & me went to cudappah…
The first wicket went for duck when we find nothing like what i imagined, but my fellow man was just charging me up to search more… so we didnt gave up…
In that attemppt of searching at the outskirts of cudappa, we ended up in village to take some rest… we were just enquiring about near by locations to the locals… and one guy said there is a ruined temple near a river, that is somewhere 60km far away…
Cut to- we were standing at one end of the river looking at the temple opposite, and the river was running on knees level… i said my fellowman “if we come here for shooting, dont say anybody that we hunted this location, else we will be scoulded like anything” Boss, it was looking awesome and picturistique…
But to shoot there u have to cross the river about 0.5km, by walk, no bridge. we were planning to shoot on march, so summer will kill too… but the location had the elements that were there in the lyrics… in that song there was few notes on shiva, and we found a idol of shive being ruinned inside the temple…like that what not matches with that song… i said him ‘worth coming here, Ram will be very happy to see the location’…
cut to – Ram was jumping… because he was planning to shoot this song majorly in thiruvannamalai… but everything changed after we finalised this location.. the look, the approach, the style..etc.
while shooting, because it was no sense to take generator or lights, which cant even reach half of the way to location, i said the line producer, im just going to shoot naturally, and lets have jimmy jib for only one day, rest i can manage with conventional track & trolly crane… no lights and no generator… he was happy (coz he saves money)
one fine morning, the last day at cudappa, when we summarise about our work till date, Ram said that we lag visuals for the second anthra, rest will be done today, but if we extend till night we can finish and wrap up to chennai…
i got fused and confused, what? shooting night without lights, i thought im f**ked, i said Ram why dont we extend tomorrow, else bring lights from chennai immediately within evening, which was not possible both the way, coz of jeeva’s dates again… he has to be there in chennai the next morning, only we have is the 24hrs and nothing else.
i asked the set assitants to get loads of fire woods and torches about 10 or so… on the day we shot for the musical part comfortably, but when it got dark, it was totally difficult, no service light, just we had woods and fire, that too will burn only on take, coz the heat was so high that camera body got into a critical temperature to work with… and i was keep on insisting jeeva to be as close as he can to the fire so that he will be into my exposure lattitude… but he suffered a lot to be near… again because of heat…
Everyone was happy after the shoot, that something they have acheived to tackle the timely situation to shoot & complete the song, EXCEPT ME!
The only person, coz only i know that every shot i exposed where 2 stops under, even push processing can do nothing much in it… but kept quite with only one hope that i belived my lens setup than my exposure… ‘Ultra prime lenses should save me’ was my mantra thru out the day & night till i saw it on telecine monitor…
Those RGB graphs was in a solid raise to the required density, which i compared to my confidence level on the day of shooting… i rushed to the rest room and breath heavily (what to do yaar?, naanum valikadha madhiriye evlo neram thaan nadikiradhu? )
Then only we came to shoot the lead scene and the begining shots of the song. That was near a a railway track, and my manager came up with a new issue that ‘ sir, there is no permission to lit up, coz we have only near by road permission, not from the railway department, so can u adjust without lights?’. and i said ‘u know it is night effect?’, he said, ‘yeah, but i know u can shoot without light even in night’… sala… kya bol saktha hoon mein?… i said ‘atleast give me a betromax light’ and he was saying loud ’sir i’ll give u two betromax light sir’… but this time i didnt panic, coz i have experience from my side… so cool… we shot that scene with the vehicles head light and one betromax light… because the second one was not burning… as always happens!
inside the streets we shot on 8 frames and extended it to 24 frames, to achieve the strokes of the sources… which gave the song a trippy mood ( i think it gave )…
those lyrics actually fitted to me better than even the charecter prabhakar
“Innum oar iruavu,
innum oar nilavu (the alternate source i had other than the fire & betromax )
innum oar ninaivu,
idho idho yedhiril irundhu bayamuruthum…”
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
after innum….vendum innum more on
“madurai…kulunga…kulunge…nee naiyandi pattu padu…”
“kangal irundal…” a great montage song in the tradition of Bharathiraja…KB Sir…..+ the 80s feel…almost took me to my all time fav “Pon maalai pozhuthu” – Nizhalgal….some other awesome songs like “valaiyosai” from sathya…..
“andhi mazhai” rajaparvai….Mani Saar’s awesome first montage song…of Pallavi Annu Pallavi….
Paruthiveeran’s “aaiyya yo….” was great too…also the childhood song….
So its Bala, Ameer, Sasi and Ram….the Dirty Dozen/Shandiyars of Tamil Cinema
So excited to have you here man……feels like PFC of yore….
@ Kathir-”what to do yaar?, naanum valikadha madhiriye evlo neram thaan nadikiradhu?”
Haha that made for nice reading.Vasan is right,
kandippaga indha idhayam ketkum innum konjum,innum konjum,innum konjum
Loved Paravaye engu irukirai & Kangal Irundal is among my all time fav recent tamil songs.The song keeps growing on me.For me Subramaniapuram & Anjathey were very special last year.Looking forward to your next & Mahesh Muthusamy’s work in Nandhalala.Keep the flow on buddy!!!
@Kathir – you have light in your name dude!!
After this experience – you should also have a second name ‘Agni puthran’!!!
some terms like telecine monitor and RGB density escape my understanding – however I got the drift of innovating with available resources to get the desired effect – One question/suggestion – you should patent this idea of ‘firewood photography’!!
jai,
many leading cinematographers have done long before i did, so they wont give patent to me…
“agni puthran” – i like it, coz i was considering this name as one for my new born baby boy and we ended up in a name called “Vetri”…
probably you can post next about others who have gotten out of a tight spot like you have done for Katradhu thamizh ( I kinda like it better than Thamizh MA).
this is amazing out of the box cinematography..the line producer must have been creaming..at the cost cutting and the time scheduling..
all keeping the meaning of the song intact..
Fabulous!
Hi sir….i m Karan…it was really great experience to read this blog…sir can u tell me what ASA u r using for this shoot???
And please keep sharing these experiences with us….it will really help many of beginners like me….
“naan sivan aanadhunala enna aachu
nee en pakkathula illanaalum
nee en paathi aayitta
paarvathi aayitta
so come, we will go n have a dance! ”
This song brings out the frustrations and the love that the hero has for the heroine, really well….
Yaaru sir, lyrics ezhuthinathu?
ganesh : Its Na.Muthukumar who has simply owned.
The movie – as we learn from Kathiir operates easily on two planes – logical and emotional(psychological). Its erratic natures derives directly from the ‘confusion of reality’ due to shock of the central character. This is entirely visible in a spectacular manner in this awesome song. Nice to know that planning – forethought did not hamper the spontonety and intusion and innovation (technical) added to the lyrical beauty of the song. Offcourse a drugged yuvan;s voice presents a neat sketch of the mind of the protagonist.
@KATHIR :
First of all , thanks a lot to have made this post , based on our questions. I hope you enjoyed sharing this with us as much as we enjoyed reading it.
A few things I enjoyed :
1. Prabhakar walking into the shot of the moon in the early morning after escaping from the streets.
2.The pan of the barren land hills evokes the same ‘wow’ response for the audience as the protagonist.
3.The part when the chorus music starts, when Prabhakar gets up in the morning.It gives the feeling ‘ Ippo thaan da paatu start aagudhu!”
4.The wonderful location with the knee deep river.I dont know if shooting in Thiruvannamalai would have given the same effect. Maybe?
5.The Aerial shot of the people dancing in the knee-deep river.
6.The part “Kaadhal nenjil vanthuvittal” where he starts walking again. Awesome.
Thala ! Please clarify these questions of mine related to one of the best shot songs in Tamil Cinema.
1. WALKING SHOTS :
There are lots of aimless walking Jiiva does along with the music which is the soul of this song. Was this all pre-planned or improvised?
Did you shoot the entire elaborate walking he did or did you anticipate the jump cuts Sreekar Prasad did and shot only what was required?
How many days did you shoot the walking sequences only for?
2. SUNSET SHOT :
Did you use any special camera for the timelapse shot?
3. MIRROR SHOTS :
The ‘uyirudan iruppadhu ippodhellaam’ part where Jeeva checks his broken tooth in the mirror.We see 3 shots.How do you plan such shots? Was any shot you took left on editing floor ?
4. CRANE SHOTS :
‘Podavai vaanga kaasu illai’ shots were done with Jimmy Jib ? Looks great.
5.And are the Samiyaars real or actors ? :P
Would be great if you can reply. Thanks thala!
@karan
5201 – 50D for day exterior
5217 – 200T for day interior with 85
5219 – 500T for night
@ sasikumar(11)
thanks sasi, in ur list number 5 is one of my favorite shot!
@ Vijay
first of all please dont call me thala… every one has it, so all are thala..cool.. ;)
1) about the walking shots, we havent spent specific time to take walking shots normally, but every sequence we shot in the entire film was shot on the protogonist coming to the specific location and his exit from that place. It is Mr. Sreekar prasad who used it clever to the rhythm of the song and its mood. hats off to his work in this film, without him, there wont be a proper structure for this film.
2) sunset shot was done in 4 frames / sec till the sun sets, and sreekar prasad syncd it perfectly by speeding it a lil bit.
3) Normally, it is better to shoot as many shots as u can for songs if it is interesting that way, this may turn out to the best with a good editing. But, sreekar always insist Ram to shoot just the required, which we sometime wont listen, there were shots which helped us that way (like the sunset shot which i shot personally to expose the last 30 feet of the remaining stock instead of wasting it, to shoot a beautiful sun, and the editor used it creatively) There is another 1 more hour of edited film left in the edit suite…
5) Samiyaars were 50/50, real & reel…
i would like to know if ther s a link of the video of the song u mentioned.
Kathiir :
Thanks a lot for the answers !
@14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJH9esqbovE
Hey Kathiir Anna…..hope u remember me……glad to know u blogging…….welcome on board..
kya dude? Kaisa hai re? Kithne dhin hogaya bath karke? Kya horaha hai tere tarafse?
Da, thanx for giving confidence to shoot stuff in locations where reaching lights r a problem… n u knw there r many such instances, becoz of some technical snag we miss out on a imp location… so my heart is now pumping faster imaging shots where lights would hav been a hassle… hahaha.. dont worry, i know its once in a while experience n not always… carry on Da…
What to do… what to do…adverse conditions will always checks our confidence to the core!