After working in 8 languages and winning the State Award for best sound designer, Renganaath Ravee talks to Mathew Joy Mathew about his medium
From a trained violinist to a sessions artist to becoming a well established sound designer still searching for new possibilities in the world of ‘sound’, Renganaath Ravee is a phenomenon. He says, “I started off as a musician but then things didn’t work out as planned, so the next option was ‘sound’. The sound industry has a lot of options and I started with music recording and live shows.” And that’s when his uber-famous poetry installations came to be.
Though they weren’t unheard of earlier, they were nothing like the one Renganaath and his team made. Their poetry installation was a synchronisation of literature, art and sound in the forms of poetry, sculptures and sound effects. That earned them a place in the Limca Book of World records for having the world’s first poetry installation combining sculptures, literature and sound.
Renganaath was recently invited to the K R Narayanan National Institute of visual science and arts, Kerala as an expert from the field, aiding them in interviewing applicants. “What I really understood from there was that very few people really understand the technicalities and the struggle involved in filmmaking. The majority see the fame, popularity and the shallow fancies of the film industries, but not more than that,” he adds ruefully.
He believes that the passion and fire in the majority of the students pursuing a career in the industry are being seen as shortcuts to fame and money. He said, “There are institutes sprouting like mushrooms which offer short term courses for film studies. But film can’t be learnt without the real passion,” he says with sadness. Renganaath is now working with the national award winning director Jayaraaj on their trilingual movie Veeram.
Reach out: www.renganaathravee.com