Phone cams to Premam, the Anend Chandran way

Mathew Joy Mathew talks to 26-year-old Anend C Chandran, the man who shot blockbusters Premam, Neram, and Anandam
Anend C Chandran
Anend C Chandran

Starting off with shooting clips on his mobile phone camera, it didn’t take Anend C Chandran too long to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. And once he got there, there was no turning back. “When I was in XI standard, I bought a Nokia 6500 phone, which had a Carl Zeiss lens, with which I began my photography. Later, I sacrificed the chance to buy a bike and bought a DSLR camera instead,” he says.

Anend, who did his bachelor’s in Film Technology from SRM University, says that more than academics, the ‘long’ discussions with his friends in college and the numerous short films that he worked on helped him understand cinema better. “Instead of concentrating on the syllabus, our philosophy was to make use of all the equipment available for us in college,” he adds with a laugh.

Anend, while studying in college, also worked on short films and photo shoots outside the campus. It was then that he worked with Alphonse Puthren, the director of Premam. While nearing the end of college, Anend was busy preparing a list of cinematographers to try and work with, “Alphonse eettan called me one day and announced that I would be behind the camera for Neram. I wasn’t even sure if I could do that then, but his confidence in me was bigger than my doubt,” he explains.

Since then, Anend has shot for some big films — his most watched and widely appreciated work being Nivin Pauly’s Premam.

Anend explains, “More than thinking of creating a hit, the primary need was to satisfy my craving to do the best.”

Anend explains that whatever he has learnt in filmmaking is through short films — a scenario that is slowly changing now.

“When we made short films, we invested our money and effort to experiment and learn filmmaking. Our objective was to learn and make it better the next time. But nowadays, short films are made to earn money on YouTube or to simply gather likes or to send it to some festival,” he laments.

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