The Legendary Cinematographer Ravi K Chandran On His Collaboration With Mani Ratnam In Thug Life
The one component of Thug Life which stood out was its cinematography, what was your brief from Mani Ratnam?
He said we would go classic style and make it look more cinematic. He wanted high contrast deeper shadows and bright sunlight. He wanted the wedding song to have many dynamics between the characters… warm colours in the first half and cooler and grey tones in the second half in a subtle way.
What was it like getting together with the visionary after so many years?
It was a homecoming for me. I have worked as an assistant in Mani Ratnam Sir’s second film Unaroo in Malayalam (1984) which was shot by my brother Ramachandra Bab. I was an assistant then. So it’s a forty-year-long association more than thrilled and I was looking forward to seeing the legend’s dynamics in the set.
How different was this experience as compared with your other collaboration with Mani Ratnam Yuva?
Yuva had a different flavour. It had three distinct colours and styles, lensing for each character. Here we used anamorphic lenses for the first half and spherical for the second half. It has one nice texture to the images.
As far as I could see you used completely different looks for the action and the dramatic sequences.
As I mentioned it had a film kind of look in terms of blocking and lensing. I had great actors and I could go close with wider lenses and light them differently. If you look at the film it has many wide closeups. A lot of cinematographer friends asked me about it in detail. They all loved the look of it. They said, “It looks like it was shot on film.” My Di-colourist Ashirwaad from Prime Focus did a wonderful timing during colour grading and the production designer and costume designer helped me to achieve this look.
Why do you think Thug Life has not been liked?
Every film has its own life once it’s out on the market. I guess people expected a Nayakan and not an action film from Mani sir and Kamal sir.
Don’t you think your nuanced lensing will be lost on the OTT?
It will. I saw the film recently on an IMAX screen. The big images blew my mind. It gave the lensing a different meaning altogether. Watching films on Ott is a way of life now. I guess it will have a different impact for sure.