In an interaction with Showville, director Venkar Prabhu talks about his journey in the film industry and the lessons that it teaches you.
I am happy that I am still in the reckoning as far as Tamil cinema goes. Though I had acted in a couple of movies like ‘April Madhathil’ and ‘Ji’, I always wanted to be a director. I have never studied direction nor have I assisted anyone and the knowledge I learnt about making movies was only from watching films.
So when I made my first movie, ‘Chennai 28’, my cinematographer Sakthi Saravanan and editor Praveen K L helped me a lot as I was operating only out of passion, whereas they were experienced in their respective fields. I’m happy that Praveen has won the National Award for cinematography for the movie, ‘Aaranya Kaandam’.
The first plot I discussed with S P Charan, my good friend and producer, revolved around horror. We, however, knew that we could not afford to make the movie at that time and that is how I came up with ‘Chennai 600028’. The horror plot is still fresh, and, maybe I will take it up again after a few more movies.
After we made ‘Chennai 600028’, many producers and distributors watched the movie and the reaction was mixed. It was something that they had not watched before and I think it was fresh because I had not assisted any director before. We were sure that the movie would create some kind of buzz, but the height of success it attained was unexpected.
After ‘Chennai 600028’, ‘Saroja’ and ‘Goa’ happened and I did them with actors/technicians who were part of my first film. Directing Ajith, however, in ‘Mankatha’ was a different experience. The original story of ‘Mankatha’ was a bunch of boys planning to cheat each other to loot the gambling money. However, after Ajith showed interest in the movie, I made a couple of changes to make it suitable for him and knowing Ajith’s interest in car racing, there’s a scene that shows Ajith entering the screen in a flying car.
Both Ajith and Arjun were cool on the sets and did not have any airs about their stardom. Yuvan Shankar Raja is always a part of my movies because he gives extra attention to my movies. We are, after all, brothers.
In fact, I would like to work on a variety of scripts, including horror, sci-fi, animation and movies for children, and hope I will be able to. However, one important thing I have learnt in this industry is that it keeps you on your toes and nobody can take anything for granted. You need to keep improving every day.
(Venkat Prabhu is a famous director in the Tamil film industry)