Know how much to absorb: Shaji N Karun

National award-winning director and cinematographer Shaji N Karun was in Hyderabad for screening of the film Chidambaram, a Smita Patil retrospective by Nanhi Kali Foundation.Says Shaji, “There is a frame before your eyes that is too big to even absorb. Therefore, what is very important is to know ‘what you do not want to see’. One must be able to focus on what needs to be visible to the human eye in the vast frame. Once, when I was watching a burnt hand with swelling, I was visualising a frog. It’s how we perceive a visual and relate memories, which become an experience. Filmmaker G. Aravindan would hardly have any script. Most of it was registered in his mind. The story would always come in layers".

“The contribution of an artist is one of the most important aspects in any good film. A ‘single look’ or the ‘wink of an eye’ can speak a hundred words. We have to capture the right shade or the right emotion. One must develop the way of watching films. One must know ‘how much to see’. There is always a sense of past, present and future in Art. Absorb the same,” concludes Shaji.