BENGALURU : Move over Waka Waka by Shakira or Tip Toe by Jason Derulo. Here’s the latest song that everyone seems to be grooving to these days. Rapper Arivu and singer Dhee (of Tamil song Rowdy Baby fame) have come out with a new song, Enjoy Enjaami, which is now going viral, with over 43 million people having viewed it on YouTube. While the song’s beats are impossible to miss, the visuals are equally captivating. Some of the credit for this goes to city-based Abhimanyu Sadanandan, who was the cinematographer for the video.
Sadanandan reveals that the video was shot in two parts and by two cinematographers – him and Balaji Subramanian. Ask him if he expected the song to be such a hit and he says while the team hoped for a good response, no one imagined it to blow up this much. “When we heard the song, we knew it was going to be popular especially among the youth. But we didn’t anticipate the fame it has received,” says Sadanandan, who shot the forest portions of the song.
The song, which was directed by Amith Krishnan from Studio MOCA, required the team to brainstorm to get the concept right. “We had to get the idea clear. My segment, which was the jungle part, was set in the studio, where we had to create as much of the real effect as we could. So, one of the most important aspects was getting the lighting right,” says the 29-year-old. The challenges didn’t stop there.
“When you make a music video, it’s not just the beats but also the visuals that hold an equal importance. The music was already catchy and now the onus was on us to come up with good visuals, something that would stay in the minds of people,” says Sadanandan, who was also the cinematographer for the Kannada movie Mundina Nildana, starring Praveen Tej, Radhika Chetan and Ananya Kashyap.
Tuning in
Enjoy Enjaami is the first album from Maajja, the record label by A R Rahman to support independent artistes The song speaks about the history of oppression, exploitation and labour, which goes 200 years back The song refers to Valliamma, who is Arivu’s grandmother