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`Samurai' with a message
Creating sound that matches scene for `Samurai'.
A TRAIN chugs out of the railway station. Vikram struggles to get in, mistaken to be a thief and is roughed up by Nasser before he could prove he had an unreserved ticket. In a few moments, the hero comes to the rescue of an alcoholic who has a chest stroke.
`Samurai', then quietly disappears to squat inside the unreserved compartment. And Harris Jeyaraj's melody `Mungil Kadugale' completely picturised on Vikram takes over. There's the pristine sound of the waterfalls, the chirping of the birds and other ambient sound that makes you believe you were there. The magic of DTS technology, we are told.
Zoom out of the screen and Chief Audio Engineer H.Sridhar, music director Harris Jeyaraj and director Balaji have just broken for lunch after the sound mixing session at Real Image Media Technologies THX certified studio (supposed to be the only one in India--the place where `Lagaan', `Dil Chahta Hai', `Dil Se', `Yaadien', `Taal' and many other movies were given final touches).
``Sound mixing is the last link in the chain. The process of filmmaking finishes here. After this, the sound mixed here goes to the sound negative and that's what people see in the theatres,'' explains Sridhar. The much-awaited project from Aalayam, `Samurai' is likely to be out in the theatres by next week.
`Samurai' has been under production for a long time now. Director Balaji had planned a 2001 release, but the project got delayed. Vikram became a busier star, and the director had to restrict the number of `get-ups' for Vikram lest it affects the continuity of his other films. Incidentally, Vikram had pumped iron to get into shape after Sethu to do `Dhil' and `Samurai' and had been raving about director Balaji and the project for a long while now.
Balaji had been Shankar's associate since `Gentleman'. ``I couldn't have made this film if I hadn't worked with Shankar. I got the courage from Shankar to emphasise my observations,'' he admits.
Like `Gentleman' and `Mudhalvan', `Samurai' is about a common man fighting for social change, taking on higher levels of corruption. ``People today are becoming more selfish. A lot of us feel we have to do something to reform the society, but we don't come out and do it. `Samurai' is the story of that one person--a brave common man who decides he has to do something about it,'' the director reveals.
A tale so inspiring that music director Harris Jeyaraj just couldn't let it pass off as another soundtrack for an action film. ``It would have been easy to do the typical action background score. But then the hero of the movie is an ordinary person, he's not Superman. I had to keep in mind that the hero was one among us and hence I had to do something different. Give it a new texture, new colour and it was challenging because I wanted people to talk about this. Otherwise, this is the kind of the movie the music director will get buried. The visuals were so powerful that I had to fight for my place,'' says Harris Jeyaraj.
Incidentally, the music director was so immersed in the project that he took 30 days for doing the background score alone compared to the 18-20 days he spent on 12B.
``The film demanded a dense soundtrack. It required that you hear the flies in the air. If you were watching a rain song, it required that you should feel wet. If it's a train, you should be able to pick the sound under-carriage sound. If it's the interiors of the general compartment, there's an electric rumble, a different sound of the train. A film like this required that we recreated a part of the acoustic space that would make the audience believe they were `there'. There are multiple layers and textures which the director wants to convey and to achieve that, we needed the soundtrack to be broader and wider,'' the sound engineer explains the intricacies of the sound mix for Samurai.
When we called Vikram for his quote, this is what he said: ``I have felt really good about most of my movies. But this is the first time, I have felt proud of being a part of the film. Proud of the entire team. It's a complete film, a rare commercial film with a message, very realistic and yet entertaining that you come out of the theatre feeling positive. Inspired and pro-active''.
By Sudhish Kamath
Photo: S. R. Raghunathan
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Life
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
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Madurai
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