Disturbing, dark beauty: Pv Shankar

Cinematographer Pv Shankar, alumni of Mindscreen Film Institute and our SICA member recently been most appreciated for his unique visuals for the the feature film Raatchasan which has went on to get both critically acclaimed status and a box office hit!

A native of Sathyamanglam Pv Shankar, shot his debut film ”Mundasaupatti” (a successful film as well) with Director Ram Kumar .

Raatchasan is about a cat and mouse type narrative where an aspiring film maker turned up as a cop who deliberately  chases a serial killer with a devil persona. Pv Shankar’s lighting and camera work, that is cinematic yet subtle, manipulating audience into the suspense of the moment and helping frame some of the most unforgettable moments. He used lighting to reflect a marked shift in story surrounding the Cop’s home, school, public places and towards the end killer’s secret room one represented through low-key lighting and strong colours.

Speaking to SICA,  Pv Shankar enthusiastically  says that he  changed  the lighting completely to each different episode and did not try to find uniformity …! He continues…..”We carefully tried to wrap characters in shadows, into half-lights, turn them into silhouettes and overall kept them on the edge of darkness.”

The cinematographer also has used his grips very carefully not overdoing. For example, he has not used drone for even a single shot because as he felt that this film does not require a birds eye view…only requires a building top view so he opted to shoot with Jimmy jib and regular cranes.

After intermission, there comes a 25 second continuous follow up shot of  Hero Arun, where the time of the day changes simultaneously into Day and Night (loop mode) all in one single shot. Pv Shankar surprises by saying that these two separate  tracking shots were not filmed by using any motion control rig. He states that during shooting this particular shot Motion control rig was not available in their shooting schedule…still he was ambitious to film he shot by using a Steadicam one by morning and same was repeated through night…to get jelled into one single shot he was very careful by planning the shot with same height, pan, tilt and lens combination and above all the speed of the move was done by human element that too was matched by manual clock tickling time.

For Raatchasan, Cinematographer Pv Shankar used RED DRAGON with ultra prime lenses and ARRI  Allura Zoom as regular package with 1/4 promist filter, flash back portions happening at Hill station was shot with RED HELIUM 8K.

Most of the film he lit for aperture T2 & T 2.8 and for night interiors he bathed the windows with warm light instead of regular steel blue for night windows.

Pv Shankar is also very happy and humble to receive lots of appreciation from media and critics.

– CJ Rajkumar

Auhtor/Cinematographer