Ravi K Chandran’s Saawariya still in Kodak World Cinematographers Calendar 2008

Ace Indian cinematographer Ravi K Chandran, who had worked with many ace directors has been featured in the ë2008 Kodak International Cinematographers Calendarí. This is the first time for an Indian director of photography to occupy a place in Kodakís annual calendar.
 

Says a proud Chandran, ëI felt honored. It is a pleasant surprise for me. The biggest joy is that I am sharing the space along with my all time favourite idols like Vittorio Storaro and Roger Deakins in this calendar.í
 

RAVI K. CHANDRAN TALKS ABOUT THE “LOOK” OF SAAWARIYA

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY  :
RAVI K. CHANDRAN

Having won the Filmfare award for Best Cinematography for his first Hindi movie Virasat, Ravi K. Chandran went on to win 30 awards including 4 Filmfare awards for films like Kandukondain Kandukundain (Tamil), Sapne (Hindi), Dil Chahta Hai, Calcutta Mail (Hindi), Boys (Tamil), Kannathil Muthamital, Aayutha Ezuthu (Tamil), Yuva, Paheli, Fanaa and Black (Hindi).

RAVI K. CHANDRAN TALKS ABOUT THE “LOOK” OF SAAWARIYA

The outstanding use of the camera in Sanjay Leela Bhansaliís Black, took Indian cinematography to another level and the film won multiple awards throughout the India. Saawariya is his second collaboration with DP Ravi K Chandran.

ìIt was Sanjay Leela Bhansaliís goal to give Saawariya a visually poetic theme,î commented Ravi. ìHis aim was to make the images for Saawariya more like paintings rather than just photographic images. So we started by looking at the paintings of artists like Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Fred R Wagner and William Louis Sonntag as references.î

Although set mostly outdoors at night, Saawariya was shot completely on indoor sets. ìThis gave us complete freedom to create the ambience and mood of the movie from scratch. Though the story unfolds over four nights, we wanted the different times of the night to look distinctive.î

For the first time in India, space lights have been used in a variety of ways. ìThe painterly look of this film was made possible because of space lights, which we gelled with º CT Blue for a cool night feel and used without gels for the daylight scenes. The main advantage of this lighting was that it did not catch the smoke and gave an unlit look to the image,î explained Ravi.

But his biggest challenge was to maintain a consistent look throughout the film. The movie was shot on eight sets and in the story, the actors move from one set to another on the same night. ìBut we were shooting these scenes with gaps of few months in between due to construction and deconstruction time and to complicate matters, the story demanded changing weather - from windy, misty nights to rain.î

To achieve consistency Ravi maintained complete lighting records and photographs of each scene. He also used the same film stock and constant level of exposure throughout the film. 

ìWe wanted to achieve ìpainterlyî mood lighting for the entire film. The idea was to have a dark unlit quality for the night but the actors had to be constantly lit. The key was to strike a balance between the two. The camera was static almost throughout the movie, making it look like a painting on canvas with the actors performing within that space. Every frame of the film looks like a painting. Every song was shot and lit differently and each stands apart from the other. The experience has been magical and very fulfilling.î