16mm Film

Archive for the ‘16mm Film Equipment’ Category

The BFCC is held twice a year at the Town Hall in Ealing, London. There are dealers selling mainly super 8 and 16mm film, equipment and memorabilia as well as an all day programme of films shown on a 24ft screen. www.bfcc.biz. This video is in red/cyan anaglyph 3d. Red eye left.

Wired pinhole videocamera with DVR unit for inspection and surveillance of hard to get into areas.

Whether you happen to be a building inspector or private detective, you have no doubt experienced the frustration of trying to see into hard to reach places. Well, we have a great new tool for you – a pin hole camera with a 170 cm long (approx 6′) extension cord so you can power the lens and instantly view and record what the pin hole lens is capturing.

This mini spy camera and DVR kit is an investigator’s high-tech best friend! Not only do you have an advanced extension camera, but the DVR also includes a second swivel lens camera so you can use that when you need to take more conventional pictures in the open. And during those in -between times while you’re in between tasks, the mini-DVR also functions as a personal media player. Watch a video, listen to some MP3′s, or view some pictures while you are relaxing.

Compact, versatile, and filled with features, this product is great for any insurance inspector or investigator who needs a multi-function camera for filming hard to reach locations. Our usual Chinavasion low wholesale price makes the CVSD-J03 perfect for the resale market, internet store, or special company use. As always, it is only available from your source for wholesale direct from China electronic products, Chinavasion.

At a Glance…
Extension cord pinhole lens allows for video recording at a distance The DVR can also be used as a 2MP digital camera and media player

China Manufacturer Specifications

Primary Function: Mini spy DVR for proximity or at a distance digital video recording Wired Extension Pinhole Camera
- Video: YES
- Light: YES – for close up inspection shots
- MIC: NO – use microphone on DVR
- Dimensions: Camera = 10mm diameter x 35mm long, Wired Cord = 170cm long Mini Digital Video Recorder (DVR)
- Viewing Screen: 2.5 Inch LCD
- Recording Format: 3GP
- Recording Resolution: 320 x 240, 160 x 128
- Frames Per Second: 20 FPS
- Built-in Flash Memory: 1GB
- External Memory: SD card (up to 2GB)
- Time and File Size Indicator: Yes
- Mini-USB 2.0 port
- AV IN jack (for external lens attachment)
- AV OUT jack (for PAL and NTSC TV)
- Dimensions: 88mm x 58mm x 16mm (L x W x D) Swivel Camera On DVR
- Imaging sensor: 2MP
- Field of View: 180 Degrees
- Image Resolution: 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 640 x 480, 320 x 240
- Quality: High, Medium, Low
- Capture Settings: Single, Continuous, Self, Color Effects Built in MIC Record Format: AMR SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio): 90 dB Power Source: Rechargeable Li-ion battery or AC Adapter (included) Certification: CE, FCC Manufacturer Ref: EB4BE36266EA Catalog Ref: Mini Pinhole Camera, Spy Camcorder

Other Features:

Great for surveillance or fun Record with Audio: Yes DVR can also be used as a portable media player. It can play all the following file formats;
- Video: ASF, AVI, 3GP
- Audio: MP3, WMA, WAV
- Photos: JPEG
- Ebook: TXT

Package Contents:

Model CVSD-J03 Mini Digital Video Recording System (camera and recorder) External extension lens attachment User manual – English Stereo earbuds 3.5mm to AV cable Mini-USB to USB cable 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable Internal rechargeable Li-ion battery AC Adapter (100-240V 50/60Hz) CD

 

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

Is the wired pinhole video camera also wireless? No, the wired pinhole video camera is not wireless but comes with a 170 cm long cable to power the lens. Does the lens also have a MIC to record sound as well as video? The MIC is built into the DVR, the lens can only record video.

 

Login for Wholesale Discount Price Written By: Michael

 

Visit the website: http://www.electronicschinawholesale.com
You will find much more.

Current Reviews:    This product was added to our catalog on Friday 13 February, 2009.

To manage Record, you have to do various task. It involves identifying, classifying, storing, circulating and disposing of documents. The process of record management becomes time consuming and costly. Through computer and other latest technological equipment, it becomes easier and less expensive.

When the Records are in bigger size and consume more time and money, it is wise decision to hire some scanning services. There are various scanning services are available in the market. I mention some of them in bellow mention list:

â?¢ Document Scanning â?? Document scanning services converts important data into electronic format. This will help any business to access any document easily and quickly. Document scanning give feature of data portability. It also minimizes data storage space as well as improves data efficiency.

â?¢ Paper Scanning â?? Paper Scanning Services can make your life easy by having all you papers available at you finger tips. In business there are various paper require for day-to-day transactions and it is very difficult to maintain huge amount of paper records. Very rare time it is available at appropriate time. Paper scanning services is very impressive way to decrease the stress of paper management from the head.

â?¢ Periodicals Scanning â?? Periodicals are having vital data and not always handy or understandable. They are without doubt damageable and consume much space for storage. Periodicals scanning will provide electronic format, easy access and safe storage.

â?¢ Photo Scanning â?? Any small thing can make photo defective. Climate change also can damage the photo. So the managing photo is very difficult task. You can manage photo easily by scanning and converting it into the electronic format.

â?¢ Drawing Scanning â?? Drawing scanning services can support wide variety of drawing such as, Blueprint, Survey Plans, Topological maps, Mechanical drawings and other. This type of drawing needs more storage space. With the help of drawing scanning services you can get all your data in small amount of space.

â?¢ Microfiche Scanning â?? It is very important peace of document that stores huge amount of information. To read this document any one needs a microfiche reader. Using microfiche scanning service you will find the document readable without having machine to read the document.

â?¢ Film Scanning â?? Digitalization will help the business to move ahead from others. For film scanning you needs more professional and experienced people.

â?¢ Medical Record Scanning â?? Compared to paper medical records, electronic format will ease your processing time. Scanning medical records consist of the patientsâ?? symptoms, clinical findings, diagnosis, and treatment details. Some times, this type of document will be misplaced and you meet with huge loss. Scanning of medical record will give you fast and easy access to the document.

â?¢ Aperture Card Scanning â?? There are two type of aperture card; 35mm aperture cards and 16mm aperture cards. This type of card is mainly used to have important data in record. But to read this type of card you must need the machine. Outsourcing of aperture card scanning services will help you to save on aperture card reader.

â?¢ Microfilm Scanning â?? It is near to microfiche scanning where data is very important but hard to read. So microfilm scanning will help you to have electronic format on hand with feature of easy readability.

These are the some of the scanning services which can be utilized by business to improve their standard in this competitive market.

HEy, I am new to film making. Just got a deal on my latest project and after investing TONS of doe into the digital end I am now in DESPERATE need of a decent (16MM) complete set up. Camera, lenses, editing box. I don’t want to end up with a vintage package and I can’t go 15 large for a new set up.
So many people get suicidal when thier films went UNDER, are there any of you who want to sell you 16MM set up before you JUMP?
I have CASH AMERICAN and I’m not aftaid to spend! But not 15 large!!!! Respond with Email address and I’ll send you my number! Shon

Philosophy  

The world just got a whole lot smaller. I am still in a state of total disbelief. The horrific crimes of recent suicide bomb blasts were beyond comprehension and human logic. How is it that our goals and aspirations can be so different in spite of coming from the same mould? As a father, I am always trying to encourage my two little angels Abigail Jain (17yrs.) and Kimberly Jain (13 yrs) to work hard, be fair, be honest, be kind and humane and most importantly, be open minded and tolerant of other people.

The terrorists who executed this deadly plan lied, cheated, murdered and judged all others who did not subscribe to their twisted perversion of faith and morality.

This is a very difficult time to be positive, but the future of our children and rights of a free democracy depends on everyone continuing to protect the choice to pursue what is important and right for every individual. 

The marketplace is in a total state of flux. Everyone in our business is scrambling to firm up existing clients and struggling to keep what they have. Add the challenge of preparing for HDTV and the plethora of format choices to the equation and you’ve got a difficult situation.

Climbing to the higher planes of the industry was not overnight. A native of Lucknow and a graduate of University of Lucknow and Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy/ Bhartendu Natak Akademi), My career has taken me over the years from Lucknow, to Mumbai / Bombay in pursuit of my dreams. And the companies have ranged from organizations, TV stations to ad agencies and Features. Despite all my accomplishments and obviously varied skills, I remain very true to my first love, and that is the love for cinematography.

I believe that the DOP has one primary job: to serve the director s vision of the story. Some DOP seem bent on making a different movie than the one the director is making – such behavior is completely unprofessional, even silly. I strive to maintain a fully professional attitude whether we are shooting 16/ 35mm film, High Def 24P or Video. Shooting is shooting, I try to make every shot the best it can be.

One of the great pleasures of filmmaking is the collaboration. I take great pains and efforts to put in nothing but the best i can into each shot. I try to understand the vision that the director is striving to bring to the fore- front, presenting that vision in all its totality and making it as realistic as possible then becomes my sole purpose.

Some directors prefer to control every aspect of the image, and at the other extreme, some prefer to concentrate on directing the actors and pretty much leave the photography up to me. Most commonly, of course, majority of director s fit in somewhere the middle. I am completely comfortable working either ways.

The DOP has another job, of course, and that is to help the production to stay on schedule and within the prescribed budget. I take those responsibilities very seriously as well. Being a Director of Photography is much more than just being good at lighting and camerawork (although those are primary, of course); it is also very much a “management” job: you are in charge of a number of people, different departments, equipment, schedules etc. My experience on productions large and small; from very simple to very complex shoots gives me the experience to handle the various responsibilities and keep the balance.

I am as big a gear head as the next guy, but please!

The reality is that you had better know your client and be honest with yourself about which marketplace your doing most of your business in. The mistake a lot of people make is dreaming about what might be and not concentrating on what is.

For me, I have an eclectic mix of works. I continue to shoot Commercials, Feature Films and Music Videos.

I personally believe that you better enjoy what you are doing and have as much fun as you can while doing it. I have been very fortunate to hook up with a bunch of great people, both crew and production houses.

I have noticed that instinct is starting to rule my life. I no longer fret about the “what if s”, I just do what feels right and amazingly it seems to work out. The old rule is true, if it sounds to good to be true…. Hard work is the only substitute for lack of natural luck, hell I do not even know how to spell luck. As a freelancer, you have got to make your luck, you have got to sit back and think about what type of work you want to do and then make the contacts, place the calls and pursue what it is you want.

There are a hundred ways to go wrong and only a few to go right. There is only one goal: Beautiful pictures that serve the story and flow together in the edit.

It has been a weird year (2009). I lost a number of commercials in Africa, Asia, Europe and Middle East due to the downturn in the economy, war and terrorist extremism.

And finally, this year (2010) I turned 43.

So, if you get a call from me one day, do not be too surprised.

MY MISSION
To use my skills, experience and professionalism to provide productions with distinct and compelling cinematography.

RAJEEV JAIN s TAKE ON……

PREP
I work out the complicated problems in prep to execute simple solutions in production. From location scouts, shot listing, story boarding, script meetings, watching rehearsals, testing stock, lenses, makeup and wardrobe, to scheduling and collaborating with department heads – I do not wing it. I prepare to the point where I can use my intuition to respond to the unexpected, rise above the game plan and take the film to the next level.

DIRECTORS
What gets me excited – is to work with passionate directors who take risks. Whether the film is meticulously storyboarded or improvisational, from prep to wrap, I try to unlock what the director has in their head, understand it, refine and capture it.

PRODUCERS
I know how to collaborate with a producer to get a dollar out of fifteen cents. Whether it is tapping my extensive contacts to efficiently scheduling the crew and equipment; to finding innovative and resourceful ways to shoot a film; to nailing a shot on take one – I take no expense for granted.

CREW
I have the contacts to put together a camera and lighting crew for most any sized project and the experience to delegate and supervise them. My roster have skills and aspirations bigger than their job titles; but also have the attitude to keep it fun. I hire crew that take initiative, love movies and read the script.

STYLE
I hope I am not accused of it. I want the audience to feel what I shot, not to pay attention as to how it was shot.

FRAMING
I shoot for the edit. I frame for the drama.

LIGHTING
I believe there is no best way to light. Every film has its unique demands. Some directors may want 360 degree dollies while others do not move the camera at all; others like to work with marks while some do not; some schedule 20 shots a day while some just 10. In all cases, I have to find an approach that reinforces the director s instincts, stays within the production s resources while at the end the day, elucidates the drama.

FORMAT
Whether it is Super 16, HD or 35mm, I am format agnostic. I work closely with the director and producer to not only choose a viable format; but also, to exploit it to the fullest.

EQUIPMENT
Through my contacts with vendors and rental houses; my collaboration with key personnel; and from years of shooting at a variety of levels – I keep productions from paying for unnecessary gear, while making sure we have what we need. But I also believe in finding ways to get the most of what you got.

POST
My job does not end on the set. I supervise the look of the film from dailies to digital intermediate through release prints. In post, the DP s eye is critical in creating the finishing touches as well as maintaining a visual continuity and integrity.

MOVIES
From classics to new release, from horror to romance, I know my films and genres. It’s the experience of escaping into a great film that I’m passionate about. I’m not a gadget head, don’t fall in love with shots or obsess about technical matters. I do obsess about films that move me and do all I can to be part of making them.

Quotes from some famous DP’s……

… I Believe

” I admit a fondness for commercials. It is the perfect blend of many skills. You have 30 seconds to sell an audience a product or idea using the visual techniques of lighting and camera movement to reflect and comment upon current culture. “

” Every director brings a different viewpoint to spot work. Their backgrounds vary as much as the products do and that diversity is what makes every job different and unique. My challenge as cameraman is to capture that special uniqueness on film. “

” I never wanted to be pigeon-holed in commercials. I don’t care to restrict myself to shooting just cars or tabletop. My background is still photography, documentaries and theater. I’ve traveled my whole life and I want to incorporate that into my work. Commercials reflect constant change in markets and audience. This medium demands that one be aware of the evolution in lenses, film stocks and accessories as well as to be actively involved in the quickly evolving technology of digital imaging. “

“Filming kids is the ultimate in spontaneity. You have to be ready at any moment for something to happen. It all has to do with lighting and planning. You also have to find the right place for the camera so that the kids can work in a given space and be comfortable without a lot of noise and distraction… finger on switch. “

“If you know how to light, it doesn’t matter what you shoot. If you don’t know how to light… it does not matter what you shoot.” – on shooting film vs. shooting High Def:

“Cinematography is the art and craft of the authorship of visual images for the cinema extending from conception and pre-production through post-production to the ultimate presentation of these images. All and any processes, which may affect these images, are the direct responsibility and interest of the cinematographer. Cinematography is not a subcategory of photography. Rather, photography is but one craft, which the cinematographer uses in addition to other physical, organizational, managerial, interpretive, and image manipulating techniques to effect one coherent process. Cinematography is a creative and interpretive process, which culminates in the authorship of an original work rather than the simple recording of a physical event. The images which the cinematographer brings to the screen come from the artistic vision, imagination, and skill of the cinematographer working within a collaborative relationship with fellow artists”.

“Cinematography is the process of capturing a vision on film. As both an art and a craft it is a dynamic process that involves the composition of light, shadow, time and movement. For the cinematographer this requires a synthesis of technical skills and creative sensibility”.

“A great deal of work happens between scouting and shooting and it can be a very tedious process. In the end, if any of that behind the scenes work shows in the final product, then I think that work has not been for nothing.

Q&A With Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA Indian Cinematographer On Film

Indian Director of Photography, Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA is a Cinematographer based in Mumbai, India. Rajeev specializes in shooting television commercials in the 35mm motion picture film format as well as HD Digital formats. Rajeev started in the early days of the music video revolution, before venturing into narrative filmmaking. His eclectic body of work includes Army, Badhaai Ho Badhaai, Carry on Pandu, Kadachit, Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree, Mirabai Notout,  Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and Rasstar .

QUESTION: Where were you born and raised?

RAJEEV: I was born in Lucknow, India. There was no seminal event that happened to me as a young person that made me want to be a cinematographer. It certainly wasn’t the quality of the light in Lucknow. I remember it was gray; was stained brown from the traffic and the sky dark. But as I say that, I realize the suppressed palette of the place did affect me emotionally. Saturates leaped out against that neutrals, as in a dream or a post-industrial nightmare.

QUESTION: What did your parents do?

RAJEEV: My parents were just ordinary folks. I don’t think they were particularly ambitious for me. Their main concern, I think, was that I wasn’t an embarrassment. We moved to the Etawah and then back to Lucknow, where I completed my education. My degrees were in Theatre Arts.

QUESTION: Did you have a career goal at that point in life?

RAJEEV: I wanted to be a writer, but like Mohan Rakesh I thought too much and wrote too little. That is too say I was more a reader then a writer, more academician then poet. I got very interested in semiology and structuralism (the study of how language encodes ideas). Initially I studied how the spoken and written language worked, but then became more interested in how codes worked in other languages, like the language of film. My interest in film language led me in a rather convoluted way to cinematography.

QUESTION: That’s interesting. Can you be a little more specific?

RAJEEV: I became very interested in understanding how in altering light, composition, camera angles and camera movement a cinematographer alters an audiences perception of the visual event, and thereby the audience’s emotional response. It is a difficult thing to quantify. I remember specifically thinking back to seeing Pather Panchali  when I was a child, and how its images had always remained in my imagination, not only for their pure beauty and sublime scale, but because they affected me emotionally, striking some unconscious but responsive cord. Later I saw Ray’s “The Apu Trilogy”. I had much the same response, but now my understanding was informed by my studies. It would be accurate to say that the cinematographers of these two films, Subroto Mitra, were those who most influenced my decision to become a cinematographer.

QUESTION: How did you make a connection between words and photography?

RAJEEV: In writing essays and articles about film. I realized that film images worked very much the way the spoken/written language works. You want to express certain ideas. There are culturally agreed and understood codas. These shapes, which we call letters, have agreed upon pronunciations. These letters form words. These words have agreed meanings. But it is of course arbitrary. The word “cat” has no innate “catness” about it, but on hearing this word the listener forms an idea in their brain. A cat. We can then add adjectives, and qualifiers, to make it a black cat, or an angry black cat. These words are codes, but not universal codes. They are specific to a culture that shares that language. Photography in some respects is a much more complex language system. The denotative (specific) or connotative (symbolic or implied) meaning of an image can be ambiguous, but also complex. Perhaps the best literary analogy is the Haiku poem. The fewer words have greater potential meaning — the more words that are added in longer literary forms, the more specific the meaning. An image offers both specific and non-specific meanings. It can work on many layers, conscious and not.

QUESTION: Did you have any mentors or were you totally self-taught?

RAJEEV: I’ve learned a lot from other DP’s. But it’s mainly from studying their work. Ashok Mehta and I talk a lot, and he’s given me a great deal. But I was self-taught. I studied art extensively, particularly early 20th century artists, and late 19th century artists. I learned a lot about light from them. I’ve stolen an idea from every good film I’ve seen, probably. Particularly the work of  Subroto Mitra (ISC), Ashok Mehta (ISC), Binod Pradhan, and Santosh Sivan (ISC).

QUESTION: Do you think of yourself as an artist, a technician or both?

RAJEEV: I think that’s a very important distinction. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but if you consider the nature of art, it is meant to give us new eyes to see the world. I want audiences to respond viscerally to what our intentions are for a film. I think that cinematography works very much like music in that it is difficult for us to measure or quantify why audiences respond to what we do. So it is an art. And its practitioners must therefore be artists.

QUESTION: Tell us more about your analogy of music and cinematography.

RAJEEV: I can sit in dailies and I can see the other people watching the film with me respond physically and emotionally to the images; but it is very difficult quantifying what they are responding to. If you watch people listening to music, they may also respond, but you would hard put to quantify why they are responding.

QUESTION: I’ll borrow a phrase from Subroto Mitra, who said, cinematographers are the authors of the images. But, that isn’t widely recognized.

RAJEEV: Part of the problem lies with our collective culture. Films are reviewed as theatre rather than as a unique art form. Critics will talk about scripts and performances. They talk about things they understand, but they understand them because their own cultural antecedents are principally in traditional theatre, though they may not recognize that. In this context, cinematography and music aren’t understood, except to say they were beautiful, because there is not a particular language developed within criticism for their description. Unfortunately, many reviewers don’t recognize how decisions made by the director, cinematographer and composer made a profound impact on the visceral reactions and intellectual responses of audiences. I’m not saying that cinematographers aren’t recognized. We are, at least within the industry, but not in the consumer press. I don’t think I read a single review that mentioned the significance of Subroto Mitra’s (ISC) decision to use 16mm film and other formats in certain scenes in The River, yet that made a profound impact. I consider that a significant artistic decision worthy of comment, in fact, essential to an audiences understanding of the film’s artistic treatment.

QUESTION: The collaboration between directors and cinematographers is unique.

RAJEEV: An important thing about that collaboration is that cinematographers have to integrate their vision for a film with the director’s vision.

QUESTION: Do the many music videos you shot influence you today?

RAJEEV: Not really. None of my films look like music videos, but the great thing about music videos was that we could experiment with different lighting, film stocks, lenses and filters. We would decide to try putting four filters on the lens, force process the film, or put a negative through a reversal film postproduction process to see how it comes out, and then try it again the other way around. It was a great way to learn.

QUESTION: Are there other cinematographers whose work you follow?

RAJEEV: I can mention all the obvious names, but the truth is I learn from all cinematographers. I can watch a television program shot by a 29-year-old cinematographer and find something that he or she did that is quite interesting. I’m constantly learning from other people. I still read every magazine and journal about cinematography and photography that I can lay my hands on. I still study art. I collect books of photographers and paintings. But it’s not just the good work that others do that I learn from. I learn from my own mistakes that I have had ample opportunity to make over these last 20 years. When my son Adam was in the seventh grade, he wrote an essay in which he was required to say who his hero was. He said it was me. “My father is my hero because he messes up all the time, and he lets me see it.” So I feel o.k. about messing up. I think that’s a hugely important lesson to learn. It’s o.k. to mess up, and you will sometimes mess up if you’re willing to push the limits of your craft.

QUESTION: Did any other mentors influence your thinking?

RAJEEV: I was a graduate from the University of Lucknow for a short while. That’s where I met Renu Saluja who was a really important mentor. She pointed me down some really interesting avenues as regards film theory.

QUESTION: How do you decide that something is a film you want to do?

RAJEEV: Early in my career anything that was offered was a film I wanted to do. Today, two things are likely to affect my decision. One is my first meeting with the director. That relationship is like a marriage only, oddly, much more intense. You have to decide whether you’re going to be able to get along with that person for the long time that you’re going to be together. I think I have gotten along well with over 90 percent of the directors I have worked with, and many have remained friends. The second thing is the photography. I’m always interested in doing new and different things. If the project is very much like what I have done before, and the script is not great, then it is less likely I will be interested. Sometimes a project comes along that is just so interesting it is impossible to resist.

QUESTION: What do you tell students and other young filmmakers when they ask you to share the secret of success? Do you tell them the truth about the odds?

RAJEEV: I think you have to be patient, and not let yourself believe that things are going to happen quickly. You need integrity and honesty about who you want to become. That way, even if you fail, you can fail with some dignity. If you compromise and fail, what do you have left?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA – Indian Cinematographer / DOP, Talks about … Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree – Your Dreams Are Just a Touch Away

Like any artist, Rajeev was born with innate talent burnished by experience and cultural influences. Born in 1968, his first introduction to movie magic came while observing his uncle as a projectionist at Ravindralaya Theatre, Lucknow. “I remember sitting in that little projection room and watching films with my uncle,” the Indian cinematographer recalls. “It was like watching silent movies because you couldn’t hear sound in the booth. I just saw the images and would try to understand the story. My uncle would show us Charlie Chaplin movies, which, of course, were silent. There is no doubt that he put his dream of becoming a cinematographer into my heart.”  Originally from India, cinematographer Rajeev Jain ICS WICA studied at the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in Lucknow, India.

The day after completing his studies, Rajeev went to work as a trainee on an anamorphic picture. He contributed to ten more movies as assistant cameraman before becoming a DOP. “From that moment on I considered the camera to be like a pen that you use to draw images,” he states. “Operating a camera is mainly about composition and rhythm. I also operated the camera for Bollywood songs. It was very primitive. While we were shooting, someone with a watch was timing every pan and zoom. He would say, ‘You have 5 1/2 seconds to do that zoom.’ It was a great lesson for me, learning to make each element of a shot work in that amount of time.”

I thought it was fascinating that film speaks a common language that everyone in the world can understand,” he recalls. “That’s especially true for cinematographers, because we are communicating with the audience non-verbally.” “To me, making a film is like resolving conflicts between light and dark, cold and warmth, blue and orange or other contrasting colours. There should be a sense of energy, or change of movement. A sense that time is going on — light becomes night, which reverts to morning. Life becomes death. Making a film is like documenting a journey and using light in the style that best suits that particular picture… the concept behind it.

The first important decision regarding the visuals was to shoot in anamorphic (2.4:1) format, as they had done on Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree. Rajeev explains that Manika likes to manipulate the subjective and objective viewpoints, sometimes in the same frame or even at the same time. In a simple example, a shot will begin on a subject, and then an actor will step into the frame, creating an over-the-shoulder shot, changing it from subjective––in which the viewer sees what the character sees––to objective. “One of my first suggestions was shooting Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree in Super 35 format,” Rajeev continues. “I felt that would give the film an edge that you don’t expect to see in Drama. I felt we could use the wider frame to create a claustrophobic feeling in the Shabana’s cave and more interesting composition showing Shabana in the world.” She, director Manika Sharma, designer Mansi and other members of the creative team discussed the possibilities for composing Kalpvriksh – the Wishing Tree in widescreen format, while drawing upon such visual references as another drama with an improbable theme. Though Manika storyboarded scenes, Rajeev utilized the sketches primarily as a communications tool. While shooting, the director remained open to veering from the storyboards to take advantage of unexpected opportunities. “Our production designer Mansi and costume designer gave us rich sets and costumes. Even though pushing two stops in the development sometimes is not as faithful to colours, their collaboration with this technique allowed us (especially in the dinner / fantasy sequences) to have a warm and yellow-looking scene, as if all that was lit was candle light,” he says.

In one dramatically lit scene, the school principal (Mahabano Kotwal) is sitting on the chair, looking out a window at the falling rain. “The whole scene was lit with one hard day light, an ARRI  6K,” says Rajeev. “We brought one light through the window. In order to light the door, we used a 4 by 4 mirror just out of frame to the right. The light is modulated by the rain on the window, and it stretched over to the book. We were ‘gathering chestnuts.’ It was serendipitous, and it all worked out with one light.” “For fill light on this movie, we used either very, very little or absolutely none,” he adds. “I find that with the film stocks we were using, if you’re overexposing a little bit, you can read the shadow detail incredibly well. When I saw the picture at Theatre on the 70-foot-wide screen, on the dark side, which is dead black, you can actually see hairs going into actors’ heads. I found it very interesting. I hope it works on a subconscious level for the audience.” Even though Rajeev knew that he could not shoot wide open at a T2 or a T2.8––because the Super 35 format chosen has a shallower depth––he still wanted this tool to give the story a greater stage presence. The bigger negative allowed him to push the envelope. And, he knew the grain would still be acceptable, if he stayed within the T2.8 to T4 ranges on interiors. “We could still use real sources and it wouldn’t be hard for our camera crew to follow focus,” he says confidently.

Like many of his colleagues, cinematographer Rajeev Jain has many concerns about changes that can be introduced to imagery during the post process of our electronic age. Such considerations only become intensified when one is dealing with a profusion of visual effects, which was the case with Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree. “I tried to make a concerted effort to stay as involved in postproduction as possible – which is sometimes tough because it’s ‘off to the next job’ – to work with the digital effects and optical house to ensure that there wouldn’t be any problems with the answer printing process. “You don’t see any lights in the master shot,” he says. “The master shot that we started out with was an impossible shot to light. We were jammed back in the corner with a 35 mm lens and there was a two-way mirror in the background. So we used a technique Rajeev Jain called a ‘driller.’ Simply put, you’re normally shooting horizontally across a room, and there are horizontal surfaces, like the tops of mantels and tables. If you come from directly overhead with a light and drill it down onto that surface, it works quite well. It doesn’t seem wrong. If light comes from a place that’s not normal or usual, people seem to accept the element that’s being illuminated without really figuring out what’s going on in terms of a source. Shadows go straight down, so they don’t end up looking strange or calling attention to the source. You see it on the table and then it comes off the table and lights the faces to a degree. It’s interesting because you’re not lighting the people at all. You’re lighting the environment that they’re in.

Anamorphic gives you the space in the frame to do that,” Rajeev says. “Manika has no problem filling an anamorphic frame in a contemporary picture. The story also has an elegiac aspect, so it seemed better to tell it without rock video cutting and frenetic camera movement. With the amazing cast, we knew this film would be about the performances. All those ideas––as well as ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’––factored into our decision to shoot anamorphic.” To determine a visually appropriate approach for the various moods needed in Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree, Manika and Rajeev chose to forego in large part the usual business of viewing other films during prep. “We used a lot of book work, referring to other kinds of artists working in two-dimensional forms, still photography and drawings mainly,” Rajeev relates. “This was a nice and different way to prep. Looking at movies to see how a particular sequence worked is great, but this approach started me on this incredible round of self-education, covering still photography from 1890 up ’til now. Now I can’t stop myself from buying the books. It is amazing how much visual reference source material is out there when you go back to basics. These were great jumping-off points for us.

The cinematographer also had to avoid telltale reflections of camera gear and personnel on the water surface. Along with a disciplined crew, that required careful light placement and camera angle selection. He discovered that putting the plastic at the right distance from the lens for tighter shots from Shawn’s point-of-view rendered slightly distorted images with a hint of grain, which amplified the look that he and director Manika desired. Rajeev also occasionally added reflections of characters and objects on the water’s surface to draw attention to the barrier separating the boy from other people. Sometimes the camera takes a subjective, spectator-like stance while other times the audience seems to share Shawn’s life-in-the-bubble experience. “There was no simple formula for deciding when to put the audience inside the bubble with Shawn. It was a question I asked the director for each shot in every scene. Are we with Shawn inside the bubble, or are we outside looking in?”

I didn’t believe this and obviously neither did neither director Manika Sharma nor producing company Rhombus Films. Another picture shot in an old house in Bollywood required us to actually operate two generators to power all of the lights. By the time we were done, however, I was able to shoot two-thirds of a long sequence by dollying along with the reflections seen in a long fishpond at night (Shabana’s cave). “I think it’s a visual reflection of the fact that one’s position in life can change almost instantaneously,” he says. “It’s extremely effective visually. It seems to work on a number of different levels. Using this different approach seems to freshen up all your overs and reverses. There’s a very interesting scene between Shabana and kid that was staged on an under the tree, and there’s a sense of disquiet and possible aggression. It’s very ambiguous, yet the spatial dynamics really underscore the feeling.”

There is a great advantage in working on location versus a studio. For example, the muslim house I mentioned had real marble floors. An experienced DOP knows how to utilize this reality something he can only simulate in a studio,” mused Rajeev. Reflectors were used extensively throughout the film, usually on the fill side to pick up some ambience or an edge of the keylight, and to redirect some of that light to the fill side. In most cases it was very subtle, however, just reflecting in the shine of the skin. “We used the reflectors as almost more of an eyelight,” Rajeev says. “There is such tension between these three characters. There are a lot of internal emotions beneath the surface of this movie. I felt that the audience needed to have access to the internal life of the characters, so I tried to keep eyelights going, especially when we’d get in close. Often it was done with a small reflector thrown in at the last moment.

One of the most important aspects included previsualizing the character of Shabana herself. “To nail her down, we started off by working on storyboards with an artist,” says Rajeev, “who drew terrific boards and is a brilliant artist as well. We told him our thoughts on how the Shabana looked and he set to work. Manika credits him with creating a good part of the final look, since his drawings were used to communicate to hair, make-up and wardrobe departments what Manika wanted for his look.” Part of Cave ‘ guise involved the use of a wig that often obscured the actor’s face – which on occasion made for a less than ideal lighting situation. “During hair and make-up tests, I saw that while Shabana looked amazing, they were going to be difficult to deal with for 2 weeks. She had a big headgear and a huge costume also, so there was a question of whether we were ever going to be able to really see her. I told Manika that at times she was on the verge of becoming a headgear with hair. Being very sensitive to the needs of actors, Manika didn’t want to get the hair out of her face, so we tried not to mess with her and solve it on our own.”

On Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree, Rajeev opted for Vision 200T (5274) for everything but night exteriors, explaining that the smooth grain of this non-intrusive emulsion records deep blacks, true colours and a wide tonal range. Rajeev shot day exteriors on Eastman EXR 100T (5248), using an 81 EF filter to half-correct and retain the cool blue of winter. Daylight-balanced 250D (5246) Vision stock was selected for day interiors, while he exploited Vision 500T (5279) on most night interiors and exteriors. Since shooting, the cinematographer did extensive tests with different materials to search for the right thickness and translucency. “It’s the same as using a cheap filter on the lens and we realized that any distortion or loss of focus would be magnified when the lab optically ‘squeezed’ the images into the 2.40 aspect ratio. In addition to selecting the right plastic, it was important for us to record a strong negative with properly focused images. We were shooting through filters at least 90 percent of the time.

While shooting forest scenes with the lead actor, Rajeev employed what he calls a Nine-light sandwich. “Others might call it a book light, but in any case, we were bouncing a Nine-light Maxi Brute off a piece of bead board, then letting the light pass through a diffusion frame usually fitted with either 216 or light grid. The resulting soft light striking He had a very beautiful quality, plus some serious pounding of foot-candles. This soft light had enough to punch through Shabana’s hair, and I could control the amount of light just by clicking off various globes. But it also required a lot of flagging and took up much space.” On other occasions, Rajeev illuminated the Forest by directing the light from more extreme angles. “I came in much lower and more frontal with his key than I would have normally, but the approach succeeded in letting her hair fall naturally, so, while it was tough, it worked. It did make me thankful for the scenes when Shabana is dressed up with her hair pulled back, since I could get a nice edge on her through side lighting.”

When kids arrive at tree before the climax, production established the famously setting by filming the actors in front of blue screen and green screen. Those elements were digitally composited with stock background plates culled from Ladakh. Harry and Arjun from Red Chillies’ in-house facility supervised the visual effect shots. “I don’t think these scenes could be any more believable if we had travelled to Ladakh to film them live,” marvels Rajeev. “How can you miss when you begin with 70 millimetre background plates? We matched everything to those plates.”

There were a few daylight scenes in there, so we decided that cracks in the cave roof let hard sunlight in,” he continues. “I put some signs of this in on the walls behind the actors and let some light bounce off the floor. For the most part though, the cave scenes are set at night – lit by firelight or lanterns or the imaginary glow coming off, which isn’t plugged into anything. For the Water, I chose to use a slightly blue key light on the actors but didn’t put any flickering movement in because I felt that it was distracting. The only flickering on their faces comes from the actual water. What I did add was a slight flicker effect on the walls, which I found to be more pleasing while lending a bit of realism.

Front-end lab work was done by Gemini, which provided film dailies. “After her experiences in the commercial world where you work on a monitor all the time, Manika loved watching film dailies – it opened up a new world for her,” says Rajeev. “For example, there is a shot of a Shabana delivering a line at the end of a long shot under the tree. When Manika saw it played back on the [video tap] monitor, she didn’t feel good about it. She seemed too small in the shot. She remarked that maybe her line would have to disappear in editing. After some time, Manika saw it projected on a big screen and loved the shot.” When asked if such glad tidings extend to the on-screen drama as well, Rajeev smiles, and says, “Would you be surprised if I said there is a happy ending?”

The cinematographer does not use diffusion on the camera lens, instead preferring to soften his subject as needed by selectively affecting the light source. “I’ve never liked it in films when the overall resolution of the lens changes visibly during cuts in to a close-up during a scene,” he declares. “The whole business of putting heavy diffusion in front of the lens to make [an actress] look ‘better’ is just crazy to me. I don’t want to see the cinematographer’s effort to make someone look good. Instead, I want to see the character look well, and I think that happens when the actor is both integrated into the scene properly and lit in a flattering manner. My solution is to soften at the source of illumination, and let the image be as clear as possible. Some people think Primo lenses are too sharp, but I love all that perfection. When you combine years and years of research and development on the film stocks from Kodak, with what has gone into these Arri lenses and the lab work at Gemini, and then put all that into a film being projected properly on screen, the result is such awesome perfection! So I take a lot of pride in delivering a really perfect negative. We may want to mess it up later, and that’s fine, but I believe in starting with something well-exposed and sharp.”

With all the many visual treatments necessary to depict the Shabana’s perceptions, Rajeev and Manika needed to settle on parameters early on for the more elaborate manifestations requiring visual effects. “We’re telling a story that is seen in part through the eyes of a crazy person,” offers Rajeev. “She’s an incredibly brilliant crazy person, but crazy nonetheless, so there’s a sense of the fantastic about these visions, but they are not in the tradition of science-fiction movie effects. We had submitted a wish list of visual effects for budgeting, but it came back priced four or five times higher than we hoped. This meant we had to pull back, and that decision ultimately worked better for the film we wound up making. Most of the effects are things we did ourselves, with practical light cues, or as a combination of those cues with digital enhancement.”

I’m glad that this movie’s look seems interesting to the eye, but I’m also pleased that the visuals don’t supersede the story. Early reviews are praising Shabana’s performance as one of the best she’s ever given, so it wouldn’t make sense to do anything that took away from that aspect. Lots of films now seem overwhelmed with effects, but Manika isn’t one to tell that type of story.

When Indian Cinematographer Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA is asked if, he would do anything differently today, the master artiste replies, “Ninety-nine percent of the time when I see my old films I am serene. It was the best I could do at that time of my life with what I had to work with. What’s important is your life and how you evolve as a human being and as an artist.

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Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree – Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away

Two-time Winner Indian Cinematographer Rajeev Jain ICS WICA Creates Special World of Light, Shadows in his recent film Kalpvriksh the Wish Tree Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away

Rajeev Jain has a way of seeing that takes an image to its outer limits. In his years as assistant, electrician, grip, and in the past 16 years as director of photography, he has developed a visual sensitivity and expertise.

Rajeev takes his inspiration from directors such as Satyajit Ray (Pather Panchali) and cinematographers Ashok Mehta, ISC (36 Chowrangi Lane) and Binod Pradhan (Parinda) for their use of colour and lights and shadow to amplify the emotional content of stories. I find the ability to allow the characters to operate in shadow is a real art, he says. Ashok Mehta allows his characters to function in darkness. He lights everything so the blacks are really rich – yet you can see everything.

His work in Kalpvriksh, a film by director Manika Sharma exudes a period quality with an edge. Rajeev was especially intrigued by the non-narrative, fragmented script, because it offered a myriad of visual possibilities. Shooting primarily on Kodak to give contrast to the exterior scenes, Rajeev experimented with warm and blue filters to get the look he wanted. The result is a stark, almost surreal journey into the minds and actions of the film’s bizarre characters.

Up-front collaboration on any film is essential, Rajeev emphasizes.

It’s important for me to go through the script scene by scene with the director Manika Sharma, Rajeev says, to try to see what is in her mind. I want to know what the scene is saying, who the most important character is at that moment, and how the characters move through the scene. We also share photographs and movies, which gives us a visual base to work from.

A graduate of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in Drama and a beginning still photography, Rajeev took a course in filmmaking. Intrigued by the film medium, he saw the possibilities of combining his interests with film in commercials. Searching for a way to learn camerawork, he offered his assistance (unpaid) to cameraman Subroto Mitra to learn the craft.

He taught me about his SR package, what the lenses were, and how to load magazines, he said. Then he started me by working on Shyam Benegal’s documentary on Nehru.

In 1996, Rajeev got the first opportunity to shoot a film, Army, with Mukul Anand. After eight weeks of stressful shooting – his every move was watched.

After 6 more features, then came Kalpvriksh in 2007, allowed Rajeev to explore a new visual technique to add nuance to the story. The film includes a dreamlike journey that Rajeev wanted to give a dreamlike quality. We tested filters and a bleach bypass process to give that section of the film its own special look,” he says. “Instead we decided to use a swing tilt, a view camera attachment that allows the operator to change the plane of focus. It let us throw different parts of the frame out of focus, which is difficult to do in a wide shot because of increased depth of field.

Rajeev is currently finishing production on Carry on Pandu, a feature being shot in Mumbai, as well as doing Commercials.

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Indian, Cinematographer, Dop, Kalpvriksh, Rajeev, Jain, Wishing, Tree

I’m looking to film a short Super 16mm film and am looking for the most affordable equipment (lights, cameras, tripods, etc) as this is a student production. I will be shooting in the Southern part of Taiwan around Linbian or Pingtong.

Cooked Art: Cinematography… by Pocket â?? Sized Indian Cinematographer Rajiv Jain

 

 I love films that are made like artwork, each scene is masterfully photographed for brilliant composition to create lines of action, symmetrical balance, with a fine use of space, texture, color, and perspective. Here are two movies which I recently saw again, and depict wonderful visual language.

So what the hell is a cinematographer? If you want to get into semantics, it means ‘writing in the movement.’ But their job, mainly, is to have control over the camera and lighting crews in a scene, and therefore have a lot of creative input into the final image. Though if you consider the fact that the art director is responsible for the mise en scene, the storyboard artist plans out the shots and what is actually happening, and the director is going to want to have a piece of the action, then it’s no small wonder how films end up looking great. Here are some of the guys that managed to do this (in my little opinion)

What qualification did you study at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts and when did you finish? I went straight from high school to Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts and did a 2 year Diploma in Dramatic Arts, majoring in Lighting and graduating in 1985. The courses are run differently now.  It is run more like a film school than an art school, which I think is excellent! It allows students to make earlier decisions on their chosen field within film & television, be it a cinematographer, director, producer, editor etc. It also better prepares the students for working in the industry.  It is teaching so much more than just how to make films. What did you think of the facilities you recently saw at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy)?

The facilities at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts are fantastic; I would say world class even.  The main production studio is very well equipped.  The post production facilities such as the edit suites and sound mixing rooms are just like what is being used in much of the Indian film and television industry.

I am also particularly impressed with the production value of the recent student films at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts. I think the standard of work is quite high.

I think it is fantastic that the students get to shoot projects Film is the international industry-standard format for feature films, as well most overseas television drama. It is rare for students to get the opportunity to work with film now that the digital formats are becoming more and more prevalent.  If you are able to shoot and work with film, then you will be able to work in any format that you come across out there.  It doesnâ??t work the other way around.

What I mean by this is that the principals of filmmaking are the same whichever format you shoot in.  However, shooting film requires a different approach, both technically and creatively.  These principles can be applied to shooting digital, but shooting film requires a greater understanding of lighting and exposure.

The digital equipment at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts is of a standard and quality that will enable the graduates to go out into the industry and understand pretty much the workings of any other piece of equipment they will come across. There is no reason why the quality of the student projects canâ??t match the high quality of professional projects because the equipment they are using is the same.

I am also particularly impressed with the production value of the recent student films at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts. I think that the standard of work is quite high.

What was the first break or job that was key to setting you on your way in your career?

I have had a number of breaks I guess and many of them lead onto one another. A series of fortunate events you might say, but if I was to think of one particular big break it was one night when I had just finished editing my new cinematography showreel. (A showreel is like a portfolio of work, a cut down of my best cinematography edited to music.)

Just as I had finished, an email came through to me that was forwarded by someone that I barely knew. The email said that a Kenyan production company was looking for an Indian cinematographer to shoot part of an international film that was to screen at the World Expo in Nairobi, Kenya and they wanted to see showreels.

I went to the post office the next morning and sent mine off express mail. I received phone call only days later confirming that I had the job.  I was flown to Nairobi and I worked with a full professional crew on what was my first major job.

The people I met on that project liked my work so much that I got a call a month later and they flew me to Darussalam to shoot some commercials. I eventually returned to India with a new and improved showreel.  Having international work on the reel raised my profile further and got me bigger and better jobs and an agent and I was away�

A case of the right timing I guess!

What qualities do you think are needed in order to make a career in the creative industries?

The quality that I admire in successful creative professionals is the ability to take pride in oneâ??s own work.  Whatever your creative pursuit, I think that if you are doing work that you really enjoy and that you take great pride in, then you is lucky enough to have one of the best jobs in the world.

I also think that challenging oneself by working outside of your comfort zone is important and realising that to succeed you have to be consistent, positive and work really hard.

Whichever creative field you are in, it is going to be a hard slog to get your career underway. With creative careers you are judged on your body of work and your track record. The first thing one needs to do is create a portfolio, or in my case a showreel, and then prepare yourself for criticism and knock backs, never giving up and use those knock backs as incentive to work harder and set your standards higher.

I also think it is important to do â??passion projectsâ?? that allow you to experiment with ideas or further your experience. By passion projects, I mean ones that you do for the love of it and not the pay. I shot a lot of â??freebiesâ?? to get my showreel up to scratch and to get experience before I started getting paid for my art.

Also itâ??s important to work on your network of contacts.  You never know when that person you might consider as a rival might actually be the one to pass some work your way or introduce you to new collaborators. The film industry is too small to make enemies.  We should be like a support network and learn from each other in order to continually make better projects.

For you, what are the ‘must see’ benchmark films in terms of either outstanding or pioneering cinematography?

Well for starters the cinematography on the recent Indian feature films Kalpvriksh â?? The Wish Tree â?? Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away and the soon to be released Carry on Pandu are quite outstanding. Ha!

No, seriously, some of my favourite and most influential films in terms of cinematography are not the ones with the big crane shots or the worldâ??s longest steadicam shot, but the ones that create a real mood and atmosphere.  Films that convey emotion to an audience and help to communicate the subtext of a story by saying more about the characters than dialogue alone ever could.

I think the most influential films for me would be anything directed by Satyajit Ray (Aparajito (The Unvanquished), Parash Pathar (The Philosopher’s Stone), Jalsaghar (The Music Room) for his use of mood, atmosphere and cinematic techniques of storytelling.

Also, classics such as Pather Panchali (Song of the Road). It took me a while to realise why it is considered the best film ever made. The use of deep focus in this film is not just a technical achievement, but also a storytelling one.

I also really liked Shakha Proshakha (Branches of a Tree), Agantuk. They are both quite rough and hand held at times, but very beautiful and you really felt like you were â??insideâ?? the movie.

That is what I was trying to create on the most recent film that I shot, Kalpvriksh â?? The Wishing Tree.

I want the audience to feel like they were there in Kalpvriksh, with the characters, to feel it, smell it and taste it.

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Key lights: Defining moments in cinematography since the Kalpvriksh â?? The Wish Tree

An interview with Rajiv Jain, Indian Cinematographer and owner of Rajiv Jain Films, Cinematography and Grips â?? Dubai – Mumbai – Nairobi.

Q: What is your job title? Where are you employed?

A: Directorâ??s cameraman, director of photography. I have my own company, Rajiv Jain Films, Cinematography and Grips, and Iâ??ve been doing it for about twenty-five years.

Q: How long have you been a cinematographer?

A: Iâ??ve been doing it for several years, but I started my own company at about 2005.

Q: What type of training did you have to become a cinematographer?

A: I went to the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts.  I had a two-year diploma degree in theatre arts. That put me into a position to see how the industry has changed a lot. Coming out of college, kids should just start their own company.  First, they should decide what they want to do in the industry and then go for it. The skyâ??s the limit depending on the career path you choose.

Q: What do you like best about your job?

A: Working for myself. Having the freedom to make your own decisions, to make your own path about what you want to do. But you can go for a month without working if youâ??re on your own, so definitely put yourself on a business path as well as a creative path. Take businesses classes, not just liberal arts. The film industry is a business, just like the music industry. You have to be a self-starter.

Q: Describe your typical day on the job.

A: Which job? Normally when Iâ??m not working, Iâ??m in my office doing paperwork. From your office, you might have to go somewhere on location and that can be anywhere from two days to thirty days. A lot of our stuff is remote locations. Every job is unique. As soon as you think itâ??s typical, it changes.

Q: What career were you in before becoming a cinematographer?  Do you feel that it helped prepare you for becoming a massage therapist?

A: I was doing theatre, photo journalism, working at a local channel and making a decent earning. I found myself incorporating paramount to my words, and when I started taking pictures and filming, I realized this was what Iâ??m most passionate about. But when you have a creative bone in your body, like writing, itâ??s easier to expand into other aspects of a different creative trade.

Q: What traits do you feel are necessary to be successful as a cinematographer?

A: Everybody takes different paths to be successful. But you have to keep up-to-date. Editing and graphics has changed so much. The whole dynamics has completely changed. You have to be totally flexible and stay with the current trend.

Q: Would you say itâ??s imperative to have a college education for a career such as this one?

A: I donâ??t think itâ??s imperative, but what I got out of college is I networked a lot. I donâ??t think itâ??s a hundred percent necessary. But, of course, you should have a good school to teach you what you need. When youâ??re in college, you need to start working on building a portfolio and college can help with that. If two people went for the same job and they both had impeccable portfolios, but one also carried a four-year degree, you can bet that personâ??s going to land the job. To be in the industry full-time, not just freelance, means itâ??s important to get that degree.

Q: Would you recommend this career to someone else?

A: Yeah. I canâ??t think of anything better to do. I see things that people donâ??t see. Is it for everybody? I donâ??t think so. You have to have thick skin. You have to work for months on end. Donâ??t set your expectations too high. Be realistic. My first recommendation would be to go to college and get that full-time job. Get a feel for what the industry is all about. Itâ??s hard to just have a good portfolio, unless youâ??re an amazing cinematographer. Doing it without college is extremely hard to do.

Q: What is your next career move, if any?

A: Retire and go village. No, but seriously, Iâ??m going to do more projects. I want complete control of my future projects.

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Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree – Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away â?? Rajiv Jain Cinematographer

Two-time Winner Indian Cinematographer Rajiv Jain ICS WICA Creates Special World of Light, Shadows in his recent film Kalpvriksh the Wish Tree Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away

Rajiv Jain has a way of seeing that takes an image to its outer limits. In his years as assistant, electrician, grip, and in the past 16 years as director of photography, he has developed a visual sensitivity and expertise.

Rajiv takes his inspiration from directors such as Satyajit Ray (Pather Panchali) and cinematographers Ashok Mehta, ISC (36 Chowrangi Lane) and Binod Pradhan (Parinda) for their use of colour and lights and shadow to amplify the emotional content of stories. I find the ability to allow the characters to operate in shadow is a real art, he says. Ashok Mehta allows his characters to function in darkness. He lights everything so the blacks are really rich – yet you can see everything.

His work in Kalpvriksh, a film by director Manika Sharma exudes a period quality with an edge. Rajiv was especially intrigued by the non-narrative, fragmented script, because it offered a myriad of visual possibilities. Shooting primarily on Kodak to give contrast to the exterior scenes, Rajiv experimented with warm and blue filters to get the look he wanted. The result is a stark, almost surreal journey into the minds and actions of the film’s bizarre characters.

Up-front collaboration on any film is essential, Rajiv emphasizes.

It’s important for me to go through the script scene by scene with the director Manika Sharma, Rajiv says, to try to see what is in her mind. I want to know what the scene is saying, who the most important character is at that moment, and how the characters move through the scene. We also share photographs and movies, which gives us a visual base to work from.

A graduate of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in Drama and a beginning still photography, Rajiv took a course in filmmaking. Intrigued by the film medium, he saw the possibilities of combining his interests with film in commercials. Searching for a way to learn camerawork, he offered his assistance (unpaid) to cameraman Subroto Mitra to learn the craft.

He taught me about his SR package, what the lenses were, and how to load magazines, he said. Then he started me by working on Shyam Benegalâ??s documentary on Nehru.

In 1996, Rajiv got the first opportunity to shoot a film, Army, with Mukul Anand. After eight weeks of stressful shooting – his every move was watched.

After 6 more features, then came Kalpvriksh in 2007, allowed Rajiv to explore a new visual technique to add nuance to the story. The film includes a dreamlike journey that Rajiv wanted to give a dreamlike quality. We tested filters and a bleach bypass process to give that section of the film its own special look,” he says. “Instead we decided to use a swing tilt, a view camera attachment that allows the operator to change the plane of focus. It let us throw different parts of the frame out of focus, which is difficult to do in a wide shot because of increased depth of field.

Rajiv is currently finishing production on Carry on Pandu, a feature being shot in Mumbai, as well as doing Commercials.

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Full of Surprises! Rajiv Jain, Indian Cinematographer / DOP, Talks About… KALPVRIKSH (THE WISHING TREE): YOUR DREAMS… ARE JUST A TOUCH AWAY…

Like any artist, Rajiv was born with innate talent burnished by experience and cultural influences. Born in 1968, his first introduction to movie magic came while observing his uncle as a projectionist at Ravindralaya Theatre, Lucknow. â??I remember sitting in that little projection room and watching films with my uncle,â? the Indian cinematographer recalls. â??It was like watching silent movies because you couldnâ??t hear sound in the booth. I just saw the images and would try to understand the story. My uncle would show us Charlie Chaplin movies, which, of course, were silent. There is no doubt that he put his dream of becoming a cinematographer into my heart.â?Â  Originally from India, cinematographer Rajiv Jain ICS WICA studied at the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in Lucknow, India.

The day after completing his studies, Rajiv went to work as a trainee on an anamorphic picture. He contributed to ten more movies as assistant cameraman before becoming a DOP. â??From that moment on I considered the camera to be like a pen that you use to draw images,â? he states. â??Operating a camera is mainly about composition and rhythm. I also operated the camera for Bollywood songs. It was very primitive. While we were shooting, someone with a watch was timing every pan and zoom. He would say, â??You have 5 1/2 seconds to do that zoom.â?? It was a great lesson for me, learning to make each element of a shot work in that amount of time.â?

I thought it was fascinating that film speaks a common language that everyone in the world can understand,” he recalls. “That’s especially true for cinematographers, because we are communicating with the audience non-verbally.” â??To me, making a film is like resolving conflicts between light and dark, cold and warmth, blue and orange or other contrasting colours. There should be a sense of energy, or change of movement. A sense that time is going on â?? light becomes night, which reverts to morning. Life becomes death. Making a film is like documenting a journey and using light in the style that best suits that particular pictureâ?¦ the concept behind it.

The first important decision regarding the visuals was to shoot in anamorphic (2.4:1) format, as they had done on Kalpvriksh â?? The Wishing Tree. Rajiv explains that Manika likes to manipulate the subjective and objective viewpoints, sometimes in the same frame or even at the same time. In a simple example, a shot will begin on a subject, and then an actor will step into the frame, creating an over-the-shoulder shot, changing it from subjectiveâ??â??in which the viewer sees what the character seesâ??â??to objective. “One of my first suggestions was shooting Kalpvriksh â?? The Wishing Tree in Super 35 format,” Rajiv continues. “I felt that would give the film an edge that you don’t expect to see in Drama. I felt we could use the wider frame to create a claustrophobic feeling in the Shabanaâ??s cave and more interesting composition showing Shabana in the world.” She, director Manika Sharma, designer Mansi and other members of the creative team discussed the possibilities for composing Kalpvriksh â?? the Wishing Tree in widescreen format, while drawing upon such visual references as another drama with an improbable theme. Though Manika storyboarded scenes, Rajiv utilized the sketches primarily as a communications tool. While shooting, the director remained open to veering from the storyboards to take advantage of unexpected opportunities. â??Our production designer Mansi and costume designer gave us rich sets and costumes. Even though pushing two stops in the development sometimes is not as faithful to colours, their collaboration with this technique allowed us (especially in the dinner / fantasy sequences) to have a warm and yellow-looking scene, as if all that was lit was candle light,â? he says.

In one dramatically lit scene, the school principal (Mahabano Kotwal) is sitting on the chair, looking out a window at the falling rain. â??The whole scene was lit with one hard day light, an ARRI  6K,â? says Rajiv. â??We brought one light through the window. In order to light the door, we used a 4 by 4 mirror just out of frame to the right. The light is modulated by the rain on the window, and it stretched over to the book. We were â??gathering chestnuts.â?? It was serendipitous, and it all worked out with one light.â? â??For fill light on this movie, we used either very, very little or absolutely none,â? he adds. â??I find that with the film stocks we were using, if youâ??re overexposing a little bit, you can read the shadow detail incredibly well. When I saw the picture at Theatre on the 70-foot-wide screen, on the dark side, which is dead black, you can actually see hairs going into actorsâ?? heads. I found it very interesting. I hope it works on a subconscious level for the audience.â? Even though Rajiv knew that he could not shoot wide open at a T2 or a T2.8â??â??because the Super 35 format chosen has a shallower depthâ??â??he still wanted this tool to give the story a greater stage presence. The bigger negative allowed him to push the envelope. And, he knew the grain would still be acceptable, if he stayed within the T2.8 to T4 ranges on interiors. â??We could still use real sources and it wouldnâ??t be hard for our camera crew to follow focus,â? he says confidently.

Like many of his colleagues, cinematographer Rajiv Jain has many concerns about changes that can be introduced to imagery during the post process of our electronic age. Such considerations only become intensified when one is dealing with a profusion of visual effects, which was the case with Kalpvriksh â?? The Wishing Tree. “I tried to make a concerted effort to stay as involved in postproduction as possible – which is sometimes tough because it’s ‘off to the next job’ – to work with the digital effects and optical house to ensure that there wouldn’t be any problems with the answer printing process. â??You donâ??t see any lights in the master shot,â? he says. â??The master shot that we started out with was an impossible shot to light. We were jammed back in the corner with a 35 mm lens and there was a two-way mirror in the background. So we used a technique Rajiv Jain called a â??driller.â?? Simply put, youâ??re normally shooting horizontally across a room, and there are horizontal surfaces, like the tops of mantels and tables. If you come from directly overhead with a light and drill it down onto that surface, it works quite well. It doesnâ??t seem wrong. If light comes from a place thatâ??s not normal or usual, people seem to accept the element thatâ??s being illuminated without really figuring out whatâ??s going on in terms of a source. Shadows go straight down, so they donâ??t end up looking strange or calling attention to the source. You see it on the table and then it comes off the table and lights the faces to a degree. Itâ??s interesting because youâ??re not lighting the people at all. Youâ??re lighting the environment that theyâ??re in.

Anamorphic gives you the space in the frame to do that,â? Rajiv says. â??Manika has no problem filling an anamorphic frame in a contemporary picture. The story also has an elegiac aspect, so it seemed better to tell it without rock video cutting and frenetic camera movement. With the amazing cast, we knew this film would be about the performances. All those ideasâ??â??as well as â??if it ainâ??t broke, donâ??t fix itâ??â??â??factored into our decision to shoot anamorphic.â? To determine a visually appropriate approach for the various moods needed in Kalpvriksh â?? The Wishing Tree, Manika and Rajiv chose to forego in large part the usual business of viewing other films during prep. “We used a lot of book work, referring to other kinds of artists working in two-dimensional forms, still photography and drawings mainly,” Rajiv relates. “This was a nice and different way to prep. Looking at movies to see how a particular sequence worked is great, but this approach started me on this incredible round of self-education, covering still photography from 1890 up ’til now. Now I can’t stop myself from buying the books. It is amazing how much visual reference source material is out there when you go back to basics. These were great jumping-off points for us.

The cinematographer also had to avoid telltale reflections of camera gear and personnel on the water surface. Along with a disciplined crew, that required careful light placement and camera angle selection. He discovered that putting the plastic at the right distance from the lens for tighter shots from Shawn’s point-of-view rendered slightly distorted images with a hint of grain, which amplified the look that he and director Manika desired. Rajiv also occasionally added reflections of characters and objects on the water’s surface to draw attention to the barrier separating the boy from other people. Sometimes the camera takes a subjective, spectator-like stance while other times the audience seems to share Shawn’s life-in-the-bubble experience. “There was no simple formula for deciding when to put the audience inside the bubble with Shawn. It was a question I asked the director for each shot in every scene. Are we with Shawn inside the bubble, or are we outside looking in?”

I didnâ??t believe this and obviously neither did neither director Manika Sharma nor producing company Rhombus Films. Another picture shot in an old house in Bollywood required us to actually operate two generators to power all of the lights. By the time we were done, however, I was able to shoot two-thirds of a long sequence by dollying along with the reflections seen in a long fishpond at night (Shabanaâ??s cave). â??I think itâ??s a visual reflection of the fact that oneâ??s position in life can change almost instantaneously,â? he says. â??Itâ??s extremely effective visually. It seems to work on a number of different levels. Using this different approach seems to freshen up all your overs and reverses. Thereâ??s a very interesting scene between Shabana and kid that was staged on an under the tree, and thereâ??s a sense of disquiet and possible aggression. Itâ??s very ambiguous, yet the spatial dynamics really underscore the feeling.â?

There is a great advantage in working on location versus a studio. For example, the muslim house I mentioned had real marble floors. An experienced DOP knows how to utilize this reality something he can only simulate in a studio,” mused Rajiv. Reflectors were used extensively throughout the film, usually on the fill side to pick up some ambience or an edge of the keylight, and to redirect some of that light to the fill side. In most cases it was very subtle, however, just reflecting in the shine of the skin. â??We used the reflectors as almost more of an eyelight,â? Rajiv says. â??There is such tension between these three characters. There are a lot of internal emotions beneath the surface of this movie. I felt that the audience needed to have access to the internal life of the characters, so I tried to keep eyelights going, especially when weâ??d get in close. Often it was done with a small reflector thrown in at the last moment.

One of the most important aspects included previsualizing the character of Shabana herself. “To nail her down, we started off by working on storyboards with an artist,” says Rajiv, “who drew terrific boards and is a brilliant artist as well. We told him our thoughts on how the Shabana looked and he set to work. Manika credits him with creating a good part of the final look, since his drawings were used to communicate to hair, make-up and wardrobe departments what Manika wanted for his look.” Part of Cave ‘ guise involved the use of a wig that often obscured the actor’s face – which on occasion made for a less than ideal lighting situation. “During hair and make-up tests, I saw that while Shabana looked amazing, they were going to be difficult to deal with for 2 weeks. She had a big headgear and a huge costume also, so there was a question of whether we were ever going to be able to really see her. I told Manika that at times she was on the verge of becoming a headgear with hair. Being very sensitive to the needs of actors, Manika didn’t want to get the hair out of her face, so we tried not to mess with her and solve it on our own.”

On Kalpvriksh â?? The Wishing Tree, Rajiv opted for Vision 200T (5274) for everything but night exteriors, explaining that the smooth grain of this non-intrusive emulsion records deep blacks, true colours and a wide tonal range. Rajiv shot day exteriors on Eastman EXR 100T (5248), using an 81 EF filter to half-correct and retain the cool blue of winter. Daylight-balanced 250D (5246) Vision stock was selected for day interiors, while he exploited Vision 500T (5279) on most night interiors and exteriors. Since shooting, the cinematographer did extensive tests with different materials to search for the right thickness and translucency. “It’s the same as using a cheap filter on the lens and we realized that any distortion or loss of focus would be magnified when the lab optically ‘squeezed’ the images into the 2.40 aspect ratio. In addition to selecting the right plastic, it was important for us to record a strong negative with properly focused images. We were shooting through filters at least 90 percent of the time.

While shooting forest scenes with the lead actor, Rajiv employed what he calls a Nine-light sandwich. “Others might call it a book light, but in any case, we were bouncing a Nine-light Maxi Brute off a piece of bead board, then letting the light pass through a diffusion frame usually fitted with either 216 or light grid. The resulting soft light striking He had a very beautiful quality, plus some serious pounding of foot-candles. This soft light had enough to punch through Shabanaâ??s hair, and I could control the amount of light just by clicking off various globes. But it also required a lot of flagging and took up much space.” On other occasions, Rajiv illuminated the Forest by directing the light from more extreme angles. “I came in much lower and more frontal with his key than I would have normally, but the approach succeeded in letting her hair fall naturally, so, while it was tough, it worked. It did make me thankful for the scenes when Shabana is dressed up with her hair pulled back, since I could get a nice edge on her through side lighting.”

When kids arrive at tree before the climax, production established the famously setting by filming the actors in front of blue screen and green screen. Those elements were digitally composited with stock background plates culled from Ladakh. Harry and Arjun from Red Chilliesâ?? in-house facility supervised the visual effect shots. “I don’t think these scenes could be any more believable if we had travelled to Ladakh to film them live,” marvels Rajiv. “How can you miss when you begin with 70 millimetre background plates? We matched everything to those plates.”

There were a few daylight scenes in there, so we decided that cracks in the cave roof let hard sunlight in,” he continues. “I put some signs of this in on the walls behind the actors and let some light bounce off the floor. For the most part though, the cave scenes are set at night – lit by firelight or lanterns or the imaginary glow coming off, which isn’t plugged into anything. For the Water, I chose to use a slightly blue key light on the actors but didn’t put any flickering movement in because I felt that it was distracting. The only flickering on their faces comes from the actual water. What I did add was a slight flicker effect on the walls, which I found to be more pleasing while lending a bit of realism.

Front-end lab work was done by Gemini, which provided film dailies. “After her experiences in the commercial world where you work on a monitor all the time, Manika loved watching film dailies – it opened up a new world for her,” says Rajiv. “For example, there is a shot of a Shabana delivering a line at the end of a long shot under the tree. When Manika saw it played back on the [video tap] monitor, she didn’t feel good about it. She seemed too small in the shot. She remarked that maybe her line would have to disappear in editing. After some time, Manika saw it projected on a big screen and loved the shot.” When asked if such glad tidings extend to the on-screen drama as well, Rajiv smiles, and says, “Would you be surprised if I said there is a happy ending?”

The cinematographer does not use diffusion on the camera lens, instead preferring to soften his subject as needed by selectively affecting the light source. “I’ve never liked it in films when the overall resolution of the lens changes visibly during cuts in to a close-up during a scene,” he declares. “The whole business of putting heavy diffusion in front of the lens to make [an actress] look ‘better’ is just crazy to me. I don’t want to see the cinematographer’s effort to make someone look good. Instead, I want to see the character look well, and I think that happens when the actor is both integrated into the scene properly and lit in a flattering manner. My solution is to soften at the source of illumination, and let the image be as clear as possible. Some people think Primo lenses are too sharp, but I love all that perfection. When you combine years and years of research and development on the film stocks from Kodak, with what has gone into these Arri lenses and the lab work at Gemini, and then put all that into a film being projected properly on screen, the result is such awesome perfection! So I take a lot of pride in delivering a really perfect negative. We may want to mess it up later, and that’s fine, but I believe in starting with something well-exposed and sharp.”

With all the many visual treatments necessary to depict the Shabana’s perceptions, Rajiv and Manika needed to settle on parameters early on for the more elaborate manifestations requiring visual effects. “We’re telling a story that is seen in part through the eyes of a crazy person,” offers Rajiv. “She’s an incredibly brilliant crazy person, but crazy nonetheless, so there’s a sense of the fantastic about these visions, but they are not in the tradition of science-fiction movie effects. We had submitted a wish list of visual effects for budgeting, but it came back priced four or five times higher than we hoped. This meant we had to pull back, and that decision ultimately worked better for the film we wound up making. Most of the effects are things we did ourselves, with practical light cues, or as a combination of those cues with digital enhancement.”

I’m glad that this movie’s look seems interesting to the eye, but I’m also pleased that the visuals don’t supersede the story. Early reviews are praising Shabana’s performance as one of the best she’s ever given, so it wouldn’t make sense to do anything that took away from that aspect. Lots of films now seem overwhelmed with effects, but Manika isn’t one to tell that type of story.

When Indian Cinematographer Rajiv Jain, ICS WICA is asked if, he would do anything differently today, the master artiste replies, â??Ninety-nine percent of the time when I see my old films I am serene. It was the best I could do at that time of my life with what I had to work with. Whatâ??s important is your life and how you evolve as a human being and as an artist.

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Q & A With Rajiv Jain, ICS WICA Indian Cinematographer on Film Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree – Your Dreams Are Just a Touch Away

Indian Director of Photography, Rajiv Jain, ICS WICA is a Cinematographer based in Mumbai, India. Rajiv specializes in shooting television commercials in the 35mm motion picture film format as well as HD Digital formats. Rajiv started in the early days of the music video revolution, before venturing into narrative filmmaking. His eclectic body of work includes Army, Badhaai Ho Badhaai, Carry on Pandu, Kadachit, Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree, Mirabai Notout,  Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and Rasstar .

QUESTION: Where were you born and raised?

RAJIV: I was born in Lucknow, India. There was no seminal event that happened to me as a young person that made me want to be a cinematographer. It certainly wasnâ??t the quality of the light in Lucknow. I remember it was gray; was stained brown from the traffic and the sky dark. But as I say that, I realize the suppressed palette of the place did affect me emotionally. Saturates leaped out against that neutrals, as in a dream or a post-industrial nightmare.

QUESTION: What did your parents do?

RAJIV: My parents were just ordinary folks. I donâ??t think they were particularly ambitious for me. Their main concern, I think, was that I wasnâ??t an embarrassment. We moved to the Etawah and then back to Lucknow, where I completed my education. My degrees were in Theatre Arts.

QUESTION: Did you have a career goal at that point in life?

RAJIV: I wanted to be a writer, but like Mohan Rakesh I thought too much and wrote too little. That is too say I was more a reader then a writer, more academician then poet. I got very interested in semiology and structuralism (the study of how language encodes ideas). Initially I studied how the spoken and written language worked, but then became more interested in how codes worked in other languages, like the language of film. My interest in film language led me in a rather convoluted way to cinematography.

QUESTION: Thatâ??s interesting. Can you be a little more specific?

RAJIV: I became very interested in understanding how in altering light, composition, camera angles and camera movement a cinematographer alters an audiences perception of the visual event, and thereby the audienceâ??s emotional response. It is a difficult thing to quantify. I remember specifically thinking back to seeing Pather Panchali  when I was a child, and how its images had always remained in my imagination, not only for their pure beauty and sublime scale, but because they affected me emotionally, striking some unconscious but responsive cord. Later I saw Ray’s “The Apu Trilogy”. I had much the same response, but now my understanding was informed by my studies. It would be accurate to say that the cinematographers of these two films, Subroto Mitra, were those who most influenced my decision to become a cinematographer.

QUESTION: How did you make a connection between words and photography?

RAJIV: In writing essays and articles about film. I realized that film images worked very much the way the spoken/written language works. You want to express certain ideas. There are culturally agreed and understood codas. These shapes, which we call letters, have agreed upon pronunciations. These letters form words. These words have agreed meanings. But it is of course arbitrary. The word â??catâ? has no innate â??catnessâ? about it, but on hearing this word the listener forms an idea in their brain. A cat. We can then add adjectives, and qualifiers, to make it a black cat, or an angry black cat. These words are codes, but not universal codes. They are specific to a culture that shares that language. Photography in some respects is a much more complex language system. The denotative (specific) or connotative (symbolic or implied) meaning of an image can be ambiguous, but also complex. Perhaps the best literary analogy is the Haiku poem. The fewer words have greater potential meaning â?? the more words that are added in longer literary forms, the more specific the meaning. An image offers both specific and non-specific meanings. It can work on many layers, conscious and not.

QUESTION: Did you have any mentors or were you totally self-taught?

RAJIV: Iâ??ve learned a lot from other DPâ??s. But itâ??s mainly from studying their work. Ashok Mehta and I talk a lot, and heâ??s given me a great deal. But I was self-taught. I studied art extensively, particularly early 20th century artists, and late 19th century artists. I learned a lot about light from them. Iâ??ve stolen an idea from every good film Iâ??ve seen, probably. Particularly the work of  Subroto Mitra (ISC), Ashok Mehta (ISC), Binod Pradhan, and Santosh Sivan (ISC).

QUESTION: Do you think of yourself as an artist, a technician or both?

RAJIV: I think thatâ??s a very important distinction. I donâ??t want to sound pretentious, but if you consider the nature of art, it is meant to give us new eyes to see the world. I want audiences to respond viscerally to what our intentions are for a film. I think that cinematography works very much like music in that it is difficult for us to measure or quantify why audiences respond to what we do. So it is an art. And its practitioners must therefore be artists.

QUESTION: Tell us more about your analogy of music and cinematography.

RAJIV: I can sit in dailies and I can see the other people watching the film with me respond physically and emotionally to the images; but it is very difficult quantifying what they are responding to. If you watch people listening to music, they may also respond, but you would hard put to quantify why they are responding.

QUESTION: Iâ??ll borrow a phrase from Subroto Mitra, who said, cinematographers are the authors of the images. But, that isnâ??t widely recognized.

RAJIV: Part of the problem lies with our collective culture. Films are reviewed as theatre rather than as a unique art form. Critics will talk about scripts and performances. They talk about things they understand, but they understand them because their own cultural antecedents are principally in traditional theatre, though they may not recognize that. In this context, cinematography and music arenâ??t understood, except to say they were beautiful, because there is not a particular language developed within criticism for their description. Unfortunately, many reviewers donâ??t recognize how decisions made by the director, cinematographer and composer made a profound impact on the visceral reactions and intellectual responses of audiences. Iâ??m not saying that cinematographers arenâ??t recognized. We are, at least within the industry, but not in the consumer press. I donâ??t think I read a single review that mentioned the significance of Subroto Mitraâ??s (ISC) decision to use 16mm film and other formats in certain scenes in The River, yet that made a profound impact. I consider that a significant artistic decision worthy of comment, in fact, essential to an audiences understanding of the filmâ??s artistic treatment.

QUESTION: The collaboration between directors and cinematographers is unique.

RAJIV: An important thing about that collaboration is that cinematographers have to integrate their vision for a film with the directorâ??s vision.

QUESTION: Do the many music videos you shot influence you today?

RAJIV: Not really. None of my films look like music videos, but the great thing about music videos was that we could experiment with different lighting, film stocks, lenses and filters. We would decide to try putting four filters on the lens, force process the film, or put a negative through a reversal film postproduction process to see how it comes out, and then try it again the other way around. It was a great way to learn.

QUESTION: Are there other cinematographers whose work you follow?

RAJIV: I can mention all the obvious names, but the truth is I learn from all cinematographers. I can watch a television program shot by a 29-year-old cinematographer and find something that he or she did that is quite interesting. Iâ??m constantly learning from other people. I still read every magazine and journal about cinematography and photography that I can lay my hands on. I still study art. I collect books of photographers and paintings. But itâ??s not just the good work that others do that I learn from. I learn from my own mistakes that I have had ample opportunity to make over these last 20 years. When my son Adam was in the seventh grade, he wrote an essay in which he was required to say who his hero was. He said it was me. â??My father is my hero because he messes up all the time, and he lets me see it.â? So I feel o.k. about messing up. I think thatâ??s a hugely important lesson to learn. Itâ??s o.k. to mess up, and you will sometimes mess up if youâ??re willing to push the limits of your craft.

QUESTION: Did any other mentors influence your thinking?

RAJIV: I was a graduate from the University of Lucknow for a short while. Thatâ??s where I met Renu Saluja who was a really important mentor. She pointed me down some really interesting avenues as regards film theory.

QUESTION: How do you decide that something is a film you want to do?

RAJIV: Early in my career anything that was offered was a film I wanted to do. Today, two things are likely to affect my decision. One is my first meeting with the director. That relationship is like a marriage only, oddly, much more intense. You have to decide whether youâ??re going to be able to get along with that person for the long time that youâ??re going to be together. I think I have gotten along well with over 90 percent of the directors I have worked with, and many have remained friends. The second thing is the photography. Iâ??m always interested in doing new and different things. If the project is very much like what I have done before, and the script is not great, then it is less likely I will be interested. Sometimes a project comes along that is just so interesting it is impossible to resist.

QUESTION: What do you tell students and other young filmmakers when they ask you to share the secret of success? Do you tell them the truth about the odds?

RAJIV: I think you have to be patient, and not let yourself believe that things are going to happen quickly. You need integrity and honesty about who you want to become. That way, even if you fail, you can fail with some dignity. If you compromise and fail, what do you have left?

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Quick notes by Indian Cinematographer / DOP Rajiv Jain on Cinematography and aspiring Indian Cinematographers:

A quick “filler post” while I try to get something actually substantial written: 

The most hits I get for my blog are from people searching keywords like “Indian Cinematographers” “cinematography career path” and “how to be a great Cinematographer.” I can really only offer my own personal experience.

Rajiv on advice for young, aspiring cinematographers:

An advice for all cinematographers is to be very aware of the digital era that Ã?¬s right on top of us, but still stay true to film at this stage and maybe experiment with both. We’re at the crossroads of film into digital. I’ve just had some tests with film compared to digital and film is still better. Film still holds more information than digital cameras do even though they’re getting better all the time. But the way to go now that’s very smart filmmaking is to shoot on film whether it be 35 mm or super 16 and do digital intermediate and put it together on film at the end. I’ve done it with my last three or four films and I’ll be doing that again with my next one. It Ã?¬s really smart filmmaking to be able to use the digital technology to manipulate images. (In regards to helping me make decisions on the day of shoot), I saved shooting Kalpvriksh Ã?â??on average about 10 minutes a day by making decisions like:

There Ã?¬s a flare coming off a window; send the grips up to get rid of it. We hadn’t got time. I can fix it digitally. It Ã?¬s very easy later on.

There Ã?¬s hot light coming off the top of the Muscos light Ã?± big flares. We cant get rid of the flares at the top edge of the frame. Don’t worry about it. If you’re going to have to set giant flags, it Ã?¬s going to take 20 minutes for us to do it. Forget it. I know I can fix it digitally.

Every now and then I make decisions like that knowing that I could make corrections at a digital intermediate. That �¬s a very smart way to go. It is more expensive than conventional timing but it �¬s getting cheaper all the time. It �¬s just going to be the norm very shortly.

I think (it Ã?¬s good) for young cinematographers to embrace that (and) to visit the digital houses (which) are more than happy to show people around (and) to show them the tricks of the trade. It Ã?¬s truly a unique experience. Once anyone has done it, they’ll never look back.

I haven’t done commercials for a long time and I just tend to go from feature to feature. (But) most cinematographers who shoot commercials if they follow them through certainly get to see the digital technology work if they’re going through the television process.

Now on to the master of the camera, Rajiv Jain:

My favourite Indian Cinematographerâ??s are:

Ashok Mehta (36 Chowringhee Lane, Moksha, Bandit queen)

Binod Pradhan (Parinda, Devdas)

K K Mahajan (Chorus, Maya Darpan, Uski Roti, Sara Akash)

Santosh Sivan (Dil Se, Iruvar, Kalapani, Perumthachan)

AND

Subrata Mitra (Pather Panchali, New Delhi Times)

You should definitely check them out. I’ve written about a couple of them.

As for a career path, I am still figuring that out myself. I remember listening to Cinematographer Ashok Mehta about how he got to the point of finally shooting features. He worked as assistant camera and camera op for a while until he got a steady gig shooting those commercials. He eventually worked his way up to Cinematographer, and has shot quite a number of films, including 36 Chowringhee Lane and Bandit Queen. It took him around 10 + 30 years to get to the level he is at currently. And that’s the big number I learned as well. It will take you about 10 years on average to become “successful” (in big Bollywood terms) in your field.

All I can advise is get onto set. Get on a camera crew, whether it is PA, assistant camera, camera op, or the person who cleans dirt off the camera cases. Watch the Cinematographer. Listen to the Cinematographer. Ask questions of the Cinematographer and camera crew. Whatever you’re doing, even if it’s the most inane and boring job on set, do it spectacularly and be incredibly happy to do it. People will notice your attitude. Make friends, but especially with the camera crew, not just the Cinematographer. (Also make buddies with the assistant director. They can give great recommendations.) Learn everything you can. Get a camera (still SLR or camcorder) and explore your own style. Try something new every day.

As for how to be a great Cinematographer:

Remember you are telling a story. And serve that story with humility, loyalty, creativity, passion, and open eyes.

And either make sure you know what you’re doing, or get really good at winging’ it. (Another post on “knowing [sort of] what you’re doing” is in mid-write, as well as some reflections on being a Indian Cinematographer thus far in my journey. Should be interesting.)

For cinematographers who are just making films, they may not have had that opportunity but I’d strongly recommend going to a digital house. I’ve done all my work through Prasad. They have the resources of all the greatest optical engineers and designers, (as well as) electronic experts from Panavision. Prasad is truly wonderful Ã?â??been a huge help to me shooting to know that I have a good lab and great cameras.

I think that aspiring cinematographers have to be aware of both formats Ã?³digital and filmÃ?³, but I tend to be (Pause) not ignoring the digital cameras, but I’m putting it off as long as I can. (Laughs) I’m a little bit guilty of not really following up on the latest technology as far as digital (high definition) cameras are concerned, but I have done tests on them. I’m still a film man. I love film.