Director Vertrimaran’s Visaranai moved and stunned audiences across the globe; and that is no exaggeration. Another factor that worked in the film’s favour apart from its gripping story, moving music, striking visuals and great performances and narration, was the manner in which the sound mixing was done.
However, the man responsible for it, sound mixing engineer Udayakumar, shies away from the spotlight. He says, “Last March, Vetrimaran showed me his first edit. That was when I began the sound mixing. At that point, some characters hadn’t even dubbed and the crew said they might rework some sequences.”
The amount of work put into the film is mind-blowing. An industry source indicated that dubbing alone took about 500 hours. Under such circumstances, mixing must have taken longer. “I don’t know how many hours I put into sound mixing. I generally say it took a year. Officially, the work came to an end in the first week of February this year,” Udayakumar says.
“There was a mix for Venice Film Festival and a different mix for the Bombay Film Festival. The version that went to the Venice Film Festival had no music and in the version for the Mumbai Film Festival, we tried adding music in four or five places. The Dolby Atmos theatrical sound system came in handy for this film,” says the silent sound engineer.
Udayakumar says that Vetrimaran used to claim that the film would be a cinematographer’s movie. “However, while working on the sound, they emphasised that sound too would play a big part. I knew that the work on sound would get noticed, but I didn’t expect the impact to be so overwhelming,” says the sound engineer who has worked on over 250 films, including Polladhavan, Aadukalam, Anjathey, Nandalala and Yutham Sei.
He is now working on the Karthi-Nagarjuna starrer Thozha and Sasikumar’s Vetrivel. “Thozha is a sophisticated film. It has a chase sequence. Vetrivel is a typical Sasikumar film aimed at B and C audiences. It will be in his regular pattern. We have just finished the rough mix,” says Udayakumar.