‘Anil does a lot of homework’
Jayesh Nair talks about the experiences during the shoot of Lord Livingstone 7000 Kandi in the dense forests of Santhampara
By : aravind k.s.
Update: 2015-11-12 08:22 GMT
Around eight months ago, cinematographer Jayesh Nair came from Mumbai to meet filmmaker Anil Radhakrishnan Menon at the latter’s house near Ottapalam in Palakkad district in connection with the pre-production discussion of Lord Livingstone 7000 Kandi. He was surprised to find three huts in Anil’s courtyard.
“It was a demo set of huts designed by art director Jyothish Sanker which Anil was planning to use for the tribal village in the film.” “He is like this. He does lots of homework before going for the production. He had tried to design different styles of mugs, ornaments and even minute properties to be used in that tribal village from the initial days of pre-production,” recollects Jayesh, who wielded the camera for Lord Livingstone 7000 Kandi.
As a technician, it was a tough job as the major share of LL7000K was filmed in the forest. “As the script demands a dense forest, we had to go for a wide search in order to zero in on an apt location. We had gone through Kuruva, Vagamon and other forest areas as part of the production and the major portion was shot at forest-like Santhampara near Munnar. In the forest areas which come under government’s jurisdiction, we had to wrap up the shoot before 5 pm owing to permission restrictions,” says Jayesh.
The cinematographer was keen on choosing less weight equipment for the shoot. “We had to walk around two hours through the forest to reach the shooting location. So it was very tough to carry heavy cameras and other equipment. So I chose red dragon and leica lens as they were comparatively less weight. The crane and jimmy job were used at the locations which were very near to the roads,” says Jayesh, who has cranked the camera for Anil’s previous movie too.
It was through cinematographer-director Sameer Thahir, did Jayesh get his first call from Anil. “I know Sameer through Sethu, my batch-mate in FTTI. It was Sameer who called me and said there is a guy named Anil, who is planning to direct a film. Though Sameer was called to operate the camera, then he was busy with his directorial project Neelakasham Pachakkadal Chuvanna Bhoomi. It was then Sameer redirected Anil to me. It was how I landed my debut film — North 24 Kaatham,” says the 35-year-old, who hails from Chalakkudy in Thrissur.
The cinematographer, who started his career as assistant to Rajeev Ravi in Gangs of Wasseypur, is now busy with the shoot of a music album featuring Andrea Jeremiah in Mumbai.
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