Exclusive | Ravi K Chandran On Why Today's Hindi Films All Look The Same: 'They Have Become Mere Vanity Projects'

Ravi K Chandran describes his current slate as something of a relaxing break, even when he’s got three films lined up, including an English film he is directing.

He shot two distinctly different looking gangster films last year (Pawan Kalyan’s OG and Mani Ratnam’s Thug Life) and his only release this year has been the Tamil period political film Parasakthi. After working on films of a similar genre, he says he “needed to work on a comedy. To decompress.”

That’s Trivikram Srinivas’ Aadarsha Kutumbam House No: 47 - AK 47, starring Venkatesh. 

This switch-up across genres and shooting styles has been on one of the many ways in which Ravi K Chandran has managed to keep reinventing himself across his long 35-year career. Just like how he had to shoot two gangster films back-to-back, in 2008, he recalls filming both Aamir Khan’s Ghajini and Shah Rukh Khan’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in the same period. Both superstar films, both high-profile projects, but between them, Chandran managed to sneak in the shoot of Nandita Das’ Firaaq, when he got a break of 30 days.

“Both Aamir’s and SRK’s films are such that I got used to asking for anything and I would get them. All the lights, the equipment… anything to make the film look good. But in Firaaq, we had none of that. We were on a tight budget, and we were shooting on film… it’s the struggle to achieve a certain quality that eventually taught me so much that I would use later.”

Just when he had completed Mani Ratnam’s Yuva, he found himself in a similar creative conundrum when he had to balance the visual languages of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s near monochromatic Black, with the rustic, earthy tones of Amol Palekar’s Paheli. “Completely different visually, for the work on both was going on around the same time.” He recalls the effort it took to make sure the imagery of both films never mingled with each other. Lensing, lighting, colours and angles, everything had to be different.

In Priyadarshan’s Virasat, a remake of Kamal Haasan’s Thevar Magan, Chandran was required to find a new way to say a story that had been etched in the mind of every Tamilian. Apart from Bharathan’s direction, it was a film that brought together the music of Illaiyaraaja with the acting prowess of Tamil cinema’s two greatest actors, Sivaji Ganesan and Kamal Haasan, and was shot by PC Sreeram. Aspiring for similar greatness may seem too farfetched, but the images of the new film, set in north India, gave them the space to experiment a little.

He recalls, “Priyan was sure he wanted to shoot most of the outdoor portions during the golden hour. So, we would start setting up at 4AM for scene that we had to shoot between 6AM and 7AM. During the day, we would then shoot all the indoor scenes and then go outdoors to shoot one more scene between 6PM and 7PM.”

The men of the film would all wear white while the woman, in a distinct visual contrast, wore bright oranges, yellows, and reds, he points out. But the trick that made the difference? “For all the outdoors shots, we got the art department to bring this fine red sand and pepper it all over the ground. After we finished lighting, just before rolling, the boys would start sweeping the sand with brooms to make it fly up in the air. Sunlight would then splinter through these fine particles to give the shot a glow.” 

It was a film that was completed in just 52 days. “Today, we shoot a single action scene for 50 days or more,” he jokes, speaking about how shooting in digital has led to a lack of clarity and discipline. He’s speaking about the older films and the shots from them, even as he’s trying to break down why Hindi films no longer find a signature look, “the kind that makes you recognise a film, even when you see a second of it flashing on screen.”

“I think it’s because Hindi cinema has become mere vanity projects,”. Describing a recent incident, he says make-up artistes of the bigger stars ask DOPs to change where they have placed the thermocol. “For them, only how the actors look matters; not the look of the film or what it’s trying to convey," he muses.

In some cases, he argues that it’s become a part of the contracts of big stars to sit in on the film’s post-production work such as colour grading. “An actor met me in post-production and asked me to clean up the under eye portions because it wasn’t looking good to them. The primary focus when we speak of a film’s look today is all about make-up, hair and costumes. It can be really annoying.” 

He insists that this shift makes the process of working of films “less personal” for him and this has also resulted in a certain homogeneity in the look of most big Hindi films today. What’s worse is how this obsession with vanity, at least in Hindi, is taking place along with the AI shift.

“At a recent ad shoot, the entire background was being replaced using AI. It’s like AI had taken over the final look and we have no control over anything anymore. DOPs will soon no longer be the authors of the images we create.”