‘The Glory is on my Craft…’

Oscar winner and the master of his own craft sound artist Resul Pookutty pours his heart out to m4m

Praveen Lulekar

Resul Pookutty is an amiable man with a smile always lingering beneath his beard. The sound artist made every Indian proud when he won the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing for Slumdog Millionaire.From Black to Gandhi My Father to Slumdog Millionaire, this Padmashree awardee has grown from strength to strength. His days in Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) have a huge impact on him as a professional as well as a human. Going ahead, he has stuck to his basics and simultaneously been dynamic with his craft.

He now comes full circle with his attachment with Pune and Marathi films. The tie is a professional one this time – he debuts as the sound designer of A Rainy Day, a Marathi film by Director Rajendra Talak. Happening on the backdrop of rain, the film does not use any background music. Instead, it embeds whatPookutty calls “a palette of sounds”, that captures rain in various rhythms and moods.

In m4m’s ‘Interview of the Month’, Pookutty talks about his relationship with Pune, with FTII and the larger picture of films and sound designing today.

You have a long relationship with Pune. Tell us about your learning curve at the FTII?

I think learning at film institutes is very unconventional. You know we all have guilt while we bunk a class to watch a film in school. But here watching a movie is studying. That is the first difference. I learnt that life is a construction of things here. I saw a painting, a work of architecture or listened to a piece of music and learnt to appreciate it. I became a better human being, a new person because of the institute.

What technical skills learnt here have you carried into films till today?

I think the beauty of learning and teaching is that you can carve yourself. When I learnt sound recording at the FTII, I learnt it with the analog technology. Today, everything is digital. So what you learn and what you practice differs. Technology also keeps evolving.

But FTII gave me a solid foundation. I can easily learn any new technology today with that base. I think it is wrong when people say that you cannot teach singing, acting or any art form. You learn history, technology…such factors shape you.

Many directors grow in institutes with short films; how important is a short film to a sound designer?

A short film is equivalent to one reel in a feature length film. In a classical structure, the film is divided into a start, middle and an end. For a good film, every reel has this structure. Short films give everyone in it this opportunity to work towards quality. Unfortunately, they do not have a commercial viability in our country.

Is commercial success important to a sound designer?

Yes it is. I come to a press conference and tell that a certain film is good. People go to watch it, and if they don’t find a reflection of what I say in the film, I get rejected. It is important for me for a film to succeed.

Talking about your connection with Marathi, it is now being formally established with A Rainy Day.Have you been attached with Marathi before this, when you were in Pune? 

Yes, of course. I have watched people like Makarand Deshpande, Vinay Apte, Vikram Gokhale and Usha Jadhav very closely. I was very active in Pune, there are so many things happening here. With Rajendra Talak and A Rainy Day, the bond with Marathi has grown commercially now. On an emotional note, I see this as a chance to pay my respect to Maharashtra that has given me so much.

Apart from Marathi, you have worked in other regional cinema like Tamil and Malayalam. Putting that in perspective with international cinema, what changes do you do with respect to your work?

It’s true that culture changes as language changes, but the basic human emotion remains the same. As far as regional cinema in India is concerned, it is easier to understand since the cultural aspect remains more or less uniform. The variable of culture acts when you work in a foreign condition. Like I did a Swedish film afterSlumdog… and I had to understand the culture of Sweden before I could start my work.

And what differences do you note between regional and mainstream commercial cinema?

The basic difference is the target audience. The second factor is the work method which gets inverted with respect to regional and mainstream cinema. While making a regional cinema, we say let’s make a film you and I would enjoy. We will later think about how to market it. Like in A Rainy Day, I had complete freedom to work in my own way.

While making a Ghajini, the marketability factor has to be considered beforehand. Accordingly, the film is made.

Finally, how does life change after an Oscar, if it does at all?

There are two things in this. I, as a person, have not changed at all. I approach my work in the same way as before. Secondly, people’s perspective towards me has changed. But I think the glory is on my craft and not on me. It is a good thing because it brings a lot of youth in cinema. And with youth, formal education comes in.

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