T'wood's 'Red' renaissance

If there is one thing Tollywood film makers are good at it is taking ‘inspiration’ from elsewhere. Telugu cinema is not only inspired by stories, locations and songs, but also by technical advancement in the Tamil film industry too. Lately it has become obsessed with the ‘Red’ digital camera with over a half a dozen movies using it, saving on the cost of film stock. This freedom from the worry of processing, developing and scanning the film to digital format is the reason many film makers and stars are purchasing these cameras. Kamal Haasan was one of the first actors in the South to have a Red camera and shot Eenadu with it last year. In Tollywood, RGV’s Raktacharitra, Nagarjuna’s Gaganam, Siddharth’s 180 and Telugu NRI movie Karma, which all release this season, were shot on Red. Film makers say the industry's latest obsession comes from the fact that the cost of production decreases by 40 per cent if shot digitally. Dil Raju, producer of Gaganam says that, “For new film makers who shoot with a lot of retakes, it saves immense cost on film. For a big budget movie, shooting on digital saves more than Rs 75 lakh.”

“My Hindi movie Shor is being shot on Red and we saved a lot of money on the production,” says actor Sundeep Kishan, who co-stars with Tusshar Kapoor and Senthil Ramamurthy in the film. “When digital still cameras came, people said they won't work but they are everywhere today. Soon, Red cameras will take over the industry. A small budget movie can save Rs. 30 lakh easily shooting with this camera and a quality movie can be made in Rs 1 crore since the film cost is saved.”Besides cost, shooting on digital formats saves the time, since the time taken to process and scan the film stock is saved. Actor Vishnu Manchu, whose upcoming movie will have all the commercial elements, acknowledges the decrease in the cost of making a movie if shot with Red, but says he bought four of them as the future of film making and film projectors is digital.

"The cameras with film will live for another four years at the best. The film projectors are going digital and so we tried this new camera. People couldn't tell the difference between the conventional film camera and this digital camera when I showed them the test shots," he says.Critics who watched Raktacharitra are all in admiration for the cinematography and declare that there isn't much difference in the quality even though this film was completely shot on digital. With the Red renaissance beginning, the industry is surely in for a major cinematographic change in the near future.