THE PERFECT MIX Rajiv Vijayakar Posted online: Friday , May 02, 2008 at 1021 hrs Print <http://www.screenindia.com/story.php?id=303653&pg=-1>Email<http://www.screenindia.com/static/story-email/>To Editor <http://www.screenindia.com/static.php?q=feed>Post Comments<http://www.screenindia.com/news/THE-PERFECT-MIX/303653/#postcomm>Rate this article* <javascript:void(0)> <javascript:void(0)> <javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)><javascript:void(0)> * Avg. Rating:0 *As the re-recordist, he's the final chapter in the making of a film. That is, after all the elements of a film - the film's visuals, dialogues, songs, background score and post-production - are ready, Hitendra Ghosh mixes and blends them in perfect proportion. Now 1860 (!!) films old, he recently won the MAMI-Kodak award for his contribution to cinema*
His landing into films wasn't really planned. The son of parents who were Rabindranath Tagore's direct disciples, Hitendra Ghosh, like his mother, was into learning music. But when his parents died early he did a course in Mechanical Engineering - five years of complete absence from anything creative. But the job that followed was so boring that Ghosh grabbed the chance to enrol at athree year course in Sound Engineering in Pune's Film & Television Institute of India. "I managed my fees by giving tuitions to school-children," says Ghosh. "But I stood first in my batch. I then approached Shyam Benegal for work because I had loved his Ankur and all he asked was whether I would do his next film, Nishant." The lack of a struggle phase and a period of apprenticeship had a flipside though. No one was around to guide Ghosh and solve his difficulties. But this negative factor was turned into an advantage. "Because of that I relied on my intuition and to this day I keep learning and experimenting, sometimes without the filmmaker's knowledge." How does he do that? With a twinkle, Ghosh says, "I keep making small changes and then go and gauge the effect by watching my film with the public!" Why did Ghosh not get into song recording because of his musical bent? "That would have become too mechanical," he grins. "I loved my phase as just a sound recordist, but re-recording, as the final mixing is called, has a lot of creative scope and greater involvement and satisfaction. Besides, I get to shape the Dolby mix of the song as it is heard in the theatre, and that is often very different from the mix on the audio CD." He explains, "In movies, the visuals have to be followed. The lyrics must be heard prominently from among the 16 tracks that constitute a recorded song." He smiles, "I have had a problem convincing some of the composers. But then there have been composers like Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Nadeem-Shravan, A.R. Rahman and Himesh Reshammiya who made sure that the words were heightened and clearly heard." Though he considers new technology as a boon - he welcomes the way the sound design was incorporated into the script of Rang De Basanti and the cordless microphones that are used for actors today - Ghosh rues that the 100 per cent technical perfection has made creativity less. "Chand ko bhi daag hona chahiye," smiles Ghosh, and adds how on catching up with his older films he is amazed at the great impact of some of his older work that was done with minimal facilities. "In fact there are times when I deliberately introduce a technically-incorrect flaw to heighten the emotional impact, like taking away a footstep in a scene or playing around with the background score. In Jodhaa Akbar in the sequence where Hrithik Roshan is writing Aishwarya Rai's name with a pen, I increased the hiss of the pen - though technically wrong, it was creatively right." And yet Ghosh says that his triumphs paradoxically lie in his work not being noticed in a film."What we do technically should be noticed only by my colleagues and those within the industry, but if the audience notices it, I have failed!" Tributing his guru, ace re-recordist Mangesh Desai, for the rare insights passed on to him, Ghosh points out that with human beings sense is about 70 per cent eyes, 18 per cent ears and 6 per cent touch or feel. "I try to maintain the same proportion in films, though there are cinema theatres where the surround speakers are so loud that people get distracted from the visuals. Another area wherein I differ from most workers in Indian cinema is that I mix the dialogues and effects first. Then if the scene is holding, I edit out the background music. But if a sequence is weak, then good background music bolsters it." Like with music directors, does he have difficulty in convincing filmmakers too about these finer points? Says Ghosh, "Many filmmakers know exactly what they want. Others say, 'Do it - then let me see it'.I learnt a valuable lesson when Mr Pahlaj Nihalani once could not put a finger on why a scene was not working and simply said, 'I am not touched by the scene!" Hitendra Ghosh's score of 1860 films (and counting!) in multiple languages is an unequalled world record. Though job satisfaction is high, he admits that till recently his field of work was not recognised or awarded. But beginning with the Zee Technical Awards he has won several awards too for his work. And the MAMI-KODAK Award is special because he is the first non-cinematographer to win it. How long does he take to complete one film? "Oh, that's very variable!" he smiles. "I took one and a half months for Jodhaa Akbar and just three days for Mukesh Bhatt's Jannat," says the man whose cap is crowned with films like Junoon, 36 Chowringhee Lane, Ardh Satya, Utsav, Naam, Chandni, Parinda, Dil, Saudagar, Khal-Nayak, Asoka, Saaya, Gangster and Taxi No 9-2-1-1 in a 34-year career. http://www.screenindia.com/news/THE-PERFECT-MIX/303653/ -- regards, Vithur Whatever God wants to give, no one can deny; Whatever God wants to deny, no one can give. Be happy always
