BENGALURU: Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra’s wedding video is the nation’s current obsession. The stillness of the moment when Advani walked in as a bride or Malhotra’s reaction when he saw her for the first time...The team of The Wedding Filmers captured it all. The world got a glimpse of the wedding when the team dropped the video but there was one Bengaluru boy who was part of the team and witnessed it live. And it was videographer Vishnu Tenkayala.
Tenkayala, who got involved in the wedding quite late in the day, was, nonetheless, thrilled because it was going to be his ‘special first’ high-profile wedding. Spilling some beans about the event, the 31-year-old says the wedding had strict security and non-disclosure clauses to be followed. “There was immense security. This was a completely unplugged wedding. We did not have access to our mobile phones. It was their day....it was about them. It was good for us as there was no distraction. I couldn’t share this with friends or family,” says Tenkayala.
Believing a wedding shoot isn’t like a movie, Tenkayala looks at weddings as special moments and tries to capture them as they happen. “Weddings are unlike movies. No retakes, you can’t ask for makeup to be redone or shots to be reshot. There is no pre-production, there is no script. Yet you need to shoot it in the manner of a story. You have to be vigilant and keep all your senses open to what’s happening around you,” he explains.
All this would not have happened had Tenkayala not taken the risk of quitting his steady job. Seven years ago, when he was browsing Facebook, a video popped up and it was of a wedding film. “I was so fascinated by the content, it was shot so beautifully and looked like a movie. I drafted a long email saying that I don’t know anything about movies and haven’t worked in this space but really loved what the team was doing and wanted to be a part of it. The next day I got a call from Vishal Punjabi (founder of The Wedding Filmer) appreciating my mail. He asked if I would go to Mumbai for an interview,” recalls Tenkayala.
He hopes to one day make his own movie. “Cinema is too integral to me. I have shot a lot of fiction apart from ads, videos and short films but in the future, I want to do my own feature. I want to eventually move into that. Being a Bengaluru boy, I definitely want to be involved in Kannada cinema in which I see great potential,” shares Tenkayala.
City-based Vishnu Tenkayala, who was part of the team that shot Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra’s wedding video, speaks to CE about his journey, the discreetness that is maintained for high-profile weddings and things to note while shooting these events