Sujith Sarang : MNMN

Jan 28 2022

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Sujith Sarang cinematography striked on a high note with Dhuruvangal 16, he continued to do many films in almost all south Indian languages. 

Recently his Tamil film Mudhalum Nee Mudiyum nee released on zee 5 OTT platform received positive feedback both from the viewers and critics.

Sujith shares his behind the scenes technical talk with SICA.

 

  • Tell me how was your experience working on MNMN

I liked the core idea of the film as, it has nostalgic element and coming of age love story set in a school backdrop, i know Darbuka Siva for many years along with his passion for cinema. 

  • How you choose Camera and Lens for a project

Basically I am not a fan of particular Camera, each and every camera has its own advantages, like Arri for its softer color palette, highlight rolloff, Red for its high resolution and Modularity. Also budget plays important role to choose camera.. For me both story and production value guides me to finalize a particular camera or lens.

 

  • It is surprising to know you had used Black Magic Ursa for this project. 

As I said earlier MNMN is a content based film to be done in a tight budget,Black magic ursa 4.6 k pro which I tested found that it had some unique features like good latitude,Internal inbuit ND filters,colors were natural and it had a different look from both Arri and Red.

  • Can you give details the format and approach towards this film. 

I shot with Cinema Dng Raw format constant bitrate, before principle photography I tested it’s dynamic range with many lighting conditions, especially bright outdoors and lowlight indoors and i saw with my Mac which has DaVinci resolve software and color graded and was impressed with its dynamic range. 

Black magic camera with da Vinci resolve we can playback 4k footage smoothly. 

  • What was your choice for Lens. 

Earlier films I had used Ultraprime, then master prime,master anamorphic, kowa v lite anamorphic each had distinct look, this time I wanted to try something new..Rokinon Xeen lenses was very impressive interms of color reproduction, build quality, sharpness.

This lens also performed very well under lowlight it has wide aperture of T 1.5 

  • What are the challenges of shooting. 

Any film shoot will have its own challenges, for me i always hate to be in comfort zone, that was the reason I had my mind shooting with BMC also other hand we have to be wise about choosing right time to shoot. 

MNMN most of the sequences are happening at exteriors and we have to shoot during May month. 

So I made a clear point with the crew to shoot exteriors only with angular light.. We timed it accordingly by starting by 7 am to 10 am move to interiors then come back to exteriors again after 3 pm.

  • Sujith another interesting part of MNMN is your lighting scheme.. Can you tell about lights you had used. 

Thank you.. This film is mostly filmed in exteriors so I used polarizers to cut off the haze and give a clean look. Story also set in two different periods of time.. So I want lighting to have the difference.

Basically I used very limited source of light like 1.5 kw par, 4 kw par, few kinoflo tubes with 6.5 kv honda generator. 

For some interiors and even a pub sequence I used tubelight source, with Chinese lantern only.

 I tried to get as much as ambient light possible both in exteriors and also interiors. 

  • What was your visual approach to this film. 

I am aware that these kind of films need very good visual language. So I decided to keep school portions of the film takes place in 90’s more warm sunny mood with slightly colors desaturated. 

Other part of story which happens present time I want to give more matured look into characters..so kept colors more vibrant and real.

  • Sujith regarding any special accessories you had used for creating a floating like movement. 

Mostly i went for steady shots for this film which I thought was very important for story telling.

For camera moves I tried more handheld shots,also used Easy rig. 

Yes for floating feel I kept camera under a pillow that worked good for me. 

 

  • Since OTT platform delivery formats are important can you share some key specifications. 

Zee5 Upload master

UHD Video:

Screen Resolution: 3840 x 2160.

MPEG:- HEVC (H.265) 50 Mbps. CBR (Constant Bitrate)

Frame rate: 25 frames/seconds

Audio: Stereo

Bit rate:320 kbps

Channels: 2(stereo)

Audio Sample rate: 48kHz

Subtitle :- VTT & SRT

  • Tell me about your next project. 

My next is Telugu feature film AadavalluMeekuJohaarlu Releasing in Theaters on February 25.

Article by

CJ Rajkumar

Author/ Cinematographer

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