Sound Wizard

Resul Pookutty likes to make Sound sound natural

MAKING sense out of sound. That’s what Resul Pookutty likes to do most of the time. Or to put it across more simply he makes Sound sound sensible. But what he’d like to say is that he likes to make Sound sound natural. Hold on folks, if you’re not getting it right. Perhaps things will fall into place if you’re told that this is Resul Pookutty, who won the Oscar for sound mixing at the US Academy Awards about 10 months ago for British Director Danny Boyle’s riveting and moving film Slumdog Millionaire about life in a Mumbai slum, back in India. Cinemagoers in India and film industry biggies in Bollywood in India had earlier begun to get glimpses of his talent and what he could do with sound in films like Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘Black’ or Aamir Khan’s ‘Ghajni’, two films that Resul particularly likes to talk about. But it was the Oscar award that catapulted him to the pinnacle of dazzling success, accolades and global recognition. Eventually, Slumdog went on to win two Oscars, with the other award being bagged by another Indian, music director AR Rahman. Now everything has changed completely for this young man from Kerala, who is a graduate from Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Maharashtra, India.

I got an opportunity to do an exclusive interview with the wizard of sound while he was here last week to attend the launch of the International Film Fraternity of Oman (IIFO) along with noted Marathi film-maker Dr Jabbar Patel as guests of honour. Later they lectured in an IIFO-organised workshop the next day.

Talking to Resul was easy, despite the fact that the interview was an impromptu one done without any prior intimation. It was gracious of him to comply in the first place. People with little or no achievement to their credit are known to put on airs and create a fuss. But success has not gone to his head at all. He still has his feet firmly on the ground, with that friendly, boy-next-door kind of charm and warmth. All this at the end of a long and tiring day around 11pm.

The first thing to get to know from him was what he felt like when they made the announcement on Oscar night. As Resul recalls the moment his face lights up, suddenly all his fatigue seems to vanish as he slips into that time and says: “You know even after 10 months when people ask me this question, I get goose pimples; the excitement of that night hasn’t left me, I relive that moment time after time. But yes, I must admit I was completely overwhelmed and it took quite a while for the reality to sink in”.

But what is this ‘natural sound’ that he’s talking about with such passion, something that’s he been into ever since he graduated from the FTII in 1995? Resul says in an earlier time, the quality of sound in Indian cinema was not good enough in comparison to films being produced in the West, particularly Hollywood. “Because of better technology, people out there were able to mix the sound in a near-perfect way. This gave their sound, a natural sound, very much like what it sounds like in real life. The difference in sound quality between their films and our films would bother me no end. I felt something has to be done about it”.

To the question of the difficulties he faced when he decided to strike out into uncharted and unknown territory, Resul admits it was a tough and lonely road. “But I persevered and kept at it, knowing that ‘natural sound’ would make a big difference”.

According to him, once India got the technology of the West it was not too difficult to move ahead and draw level with the rest of the world. “Today our films have gained global acceptance in terms of technical finesse, quality and marketability”.

Talking about his various projects, Resul says that he is at present in the process of taking the sound work of two Bollywood projects. A recently released Malayalam film which has his ‘sound touch’ has been running to a full house for the last three months. “Next year I’ll be taking up around two or three Hollywood films”.

So with so much happening, there can be no doubt that Resul will keep moving on a sound track. He only smiles as if to say ‘Naturally”!