, he says that to his
knowledge nobody has this kind of camera here.
Excerpts from the interview:
OF LATE there has been a lot of talk about digital
film-making, especially after the "Star Wars" project by George
Lucas. Yes the dream is becoming a reality slowly. Transition from
analog film making to digital is a major one. Companies like Sony,
Ikegami and Panasonic are spending huge amounts of marketing dollars
to promote digital film-making process and create awareness. As you
know, digital film-making may alter the film production landscape
forever and the powers within filmdom are going to be at odds with
each other. This would lead to tremendous politics, job insecurity,
trade union negotiations, royalty calculations, etc. It is a natural
human tendency to fight a newer method of doing work, and time alone
will settle these issues, I guess.
There seems to be a lot of problem in defining
what a digital camera is and what the different formats which are
popular today are?
The film industry more or less has accepted High
Definition (HD) as the standard which comes closer to traditional
film resolution and has an acceptable experience level for
theatrical display. Then you have DV and Mini DV (Digital Video file
format) digital cameras which are offering great promise and quality
at competitive prices. In between these, you have several other
digital raw video format cameras (most of which are broadcast
quality) which are primarily designed for broadcast channels.
What kind of camera system and infrastructure is
your company planning to bring to India?
Our company 3dmaxmedia, has recently brought in
Canon XL1 (two camera system) with all possible zoom, wide angle and
manual lenses with a number of extra wide angle and extra zoom
lenses, underwater shooting gadgets, cranes, dolly, high-end
filters, matte boxes, high-end Sennheiser microphones, submixers,
steady cam equivalents, monitor displays, mobile blue screen
gadgets, etc.
My Chief Technology Officer, Jimmy Hotz, has
invented a new series of high powered fluorescent lighting system,
which will also be a key element among our gadgets. We have pretty
much replicated all sorts of equipment used in a typical film
environment but suited for DV cameras. One of the biggest advantages
of Canon is the interchangeable lens and adaptors to put any
Arriflex 35mm lens onto digital camera. This provides the ability to
get the superb picture quality, zoom and other facilities of a
Arriflex or Cooke 35mm film camera lens.
Where do you see digital technology going?
I can foresee digital film-making eventually taking
over the film industry but it will not be overnight. Traditional
film medium will survive for some more time as there are thousands
of theatres which may not have the necessary digital projectors to
show the film.
What kind of projects are you working on
currently?
We have just finished shooting "The Tantric
Journal", a 90-minute docu-drama feature, in Palghat, Kerala. The
story revolves around an American researcher looking to decipher
certain tantric manuscripts and her relationship with the Brahmin
tantric.
I will be co-directing and acting in the film as
the tantric! We are seriously considering converting the DV into
35mm film format.
Any thoughts on the present Indian film industry
and your plans for the future?
There is much more professionalism than before . As
far as 3dmaxmedia is concerned, we plan to execute a number of
features, music videos, advertising campaigns, documentary, etc.
I hope to train young and up and coming directors
and cinematographers . They can mail me to Srini_v@hotmail.com.
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