KOCHI: The concept of sound designing rang a bell among Keralites when Resool Pookutty bagged the Academy Award for his work in Danny Boyle’s desi flick Slumdog Millionaire. Resool was the one and only Malayali sound designer who worked in Hollywood. But now there is one more name to reckon with in the field. M R Rajakrishnan, who bagged the state award for sound designing, is the new face on the list. Raja has bagged the Kerala State Award twice, in 2011 and 2012, for Manjadikuru and Chappa Kurishu and Urumi respectively.
His recent work is for the upcoming Tamil movie Saivam, directed by A L Vijay. The movie has already caught the attention for its technical aspects. The final sound mix of Saivam was done at the Hollywood studios at Los Angeles, perhaps a first-of-its-kind for an Indian language movie and Indian audiographer.
“The final mix of the movie was done at the Hollywood studio in Los Angeles. It was a great experience to work there in the Hollywood studio atmosphere,” says Rajakrishnan. “We, the movie crew, were curious to know about how the Hollywood technicians will look at the movies which carries out and out local (desi) script,” said Raja when quizzed about the reason behind the move to Hollywood.
He said that the approach of the Hollywood technicians was appreciable and they had given a great support to the crew. The pre-mix of the movie was done at the Four Frames Sound company at Chennai.
Raja is the first sound designer who did the ATMOS sound mixing in the South Indian movies. ‘Thalaiva’ (also directed by A L Vijay) was the movie which released with ATMOS sound system.
“Though another movie was re-released with ATMOS system, Thalaiva was the first south Indian movie which came with ATMOS sound,” says Raja.
He says that the friendship is the reason which spurs him to go try new experiments in the sector. “I know Vijay from the time he was an assistant to Priyadarshan. The relation gave me the much needed footing for doing audiography for all of his movies,” says Raja.
Rajakrishnan is not only active in Tamil cinema, but in Malayalam, Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali and Telugu also. He is the routine audioman of directors like Priyadarshan, Lal Jose, Santhosh Sivan, Anjali Menon, Vineeth Sreenivasan, B Unnikrishnan and Deepu Karunakaran.
He started his career as an assistant to National award winning sound engineer Deepan Chatterjee in 2000 at Four Frames sound company. Later, he became independent through Sanjeev Sivan’s Aparichithan in 2004.
“Language is not a barrier for the movie. It is the basic idea or concept that is important. If they (makers) are capable of carrying out the whole idea, then the language will not be an issue,” says Raja about his approach to other language films.
He is the man behind the audiography of the most of the so called ‘new gen movies’ in Mollywood like Passenger, Traffic, Chappa Kurishu, Cocktail, North 24 Katham, Thattathin Marayathu, Usthad Hotel to name a few.
Like the new generation movies in Malayalam he has made a mark in the so called ‘real life movies’ in Tamil such as Pizza, Soodhukavum, Cuckoo, Itharkkuthaane Aasapattai Balakumara etc.
The latest outings from his mixing suite in Malayalam are Anjali Menon’s multi-starrer Bangalore Days and B Unnikrishnan’s Mohanlal-starrer Mr Fraud. Raja, who is settled in Chennai with his family, is the son of late music director M G Radhakrishnan.