Mollywood on Tony Babu's check-list now

Tony Babu’s tryst with sound began at a very young age. A child who was crazy about movies, his attention often focussed on  the sounds in them. He would experiment with sounds using various software on his computer. Seeing this, his father asked him to take up this as his path. That was the first twist in Tony’s life. He began searching for a course in sound designing and eventually joined the Neo Film institute in Kochi. The next twist in his life was awaiting him there. There, he met a few like-minded people that reinforced his cinema dreams. The movie C/o Saira Banu was one such dream. Tony has worked as the sound designer in that movie. “Sony (director) and I are from the same institution. We have done a short film — Moonamidam — before. Saira Banu has actually started from there,” says Tony.  

It is not his first project in Malayalam. He had done a few projects of Dr Biju and a festival movie directed by Geo Baby. In fact, he kicked off his journey in Mumbai, where he worked in movies from different languages such as Hindi, Marathi and Telugu. “I reached Mumbai in 2010. My teacher’s friend has a studio in Mumbai. They were looking for a technician and I came for the position,” he recalls. It opened a new avenue before Tony. He is happy that he could be a part of many big projects during his tenure. “I have been working in Mumbai for the past six years. I am a freelancer and have been fortunate enough to be part of movies like Tanu weds Manu (two parts), Sarabjit, Bhagi, Sanam Teri Kasam, Bajirao Mastani and Mohenjadaro,” he says. “We have to design different sounds according to the mood of the movie. We should be aware of various factors such as the time period of the movie to produce the apt sound. I mostly have done sync sound movies,” he says.

Tony’s Mumbai experience has only helped him down south. “I have tried to execute what I have learnt from there although it was a tad challenging. For instance, in the movie, there is a scene where the lead character is driving a jeep for driving test. That model of the jeep is used in our place only. I could simply have taken the matching sound from the archives. But, I went to the Veli ground in Fort Kochi to record the sound so that there will be a natural feeling on screen. Sound mixing engineer Sinoy Joseph and dubbing supervisor Manoj Venugopal were always there to help me,” explains Tony, who has done 58 movies so far. Most of them were in other languages. Now, he wants to do more Malayalam movies.