From real to reel

A fervent photographer who walked a ’wild’ path until he bagged his first film project, Joseph Raja is a snapper with an intriguing story. As someone who’s indulged in wildlife photography for years, Joseph has now ventured into the Kannada film industry with his maiden movie Orchestra, for which he’s the director of photography. His debut film project narrates the tale of an aspiring orchestra singer in Mysuru. “When I shifted to Mysore, I met Sunil (director of Orchestra), Poornachandra (lead actor) and their friends.They were all interested in making feature films and were working on this project and luckily, they didn’t have anybody doing the camera work and editing, so I joined them,” says Joseph. For Orchestra, the crew shot a special climax where Mysureans were invited for a Raghu Dixit concert and given a massive surprise when they were informed that it was actually a film shoot. “It was an eight-camera set-up including a drone where the other camera men were fresh film school passouts. The scene was 
shot amongst 12,000 spectators,” reveals Joseph, whose team has also made a bunch of short films and the music video Baarisu Kannada Dindimava which went viral. 

As he reminisces his early years, Joseph, who hails from Chennai reveals that he was a last bench student in school. “But in the 11th grade, when I took up Commerce and Accounts, I started doing really well, got excited and decided to do CA later,” he says. But soon, his life took an unconventional turn. “There was a students’ sea turtle conservation network run by volunteers -I joined it and got totally drawn towards it. That’s when I decided that I wanted to do something related to wildlife. After that, I did my BSc in visual communication,” reveals Joseph, who soon got involved with story-telling through photography. His passion for wildlife documentaries led to a rendezvous with award-winning wildlife filmmakers Krupakar and Senani, who were doing a five-part series on wild dogs called The Pack.”I was the series editor and went to Bandipur to shoot for it. The documentary became a big hit and won a lot of awards including the Green Oscar at the Wild Screen Film Festival,” shares the shutterbug, who shifte
d base to Mysuru to continue working with the filmmakers. Their second documentary was titled Walking with Wolves.

Talk veers back to Orchestra and Joseph, who’s now moved to nammooru, shares that he and his director were particular about shooting a low-budget film and that it would all be candid. “Ninety per cent of the movie is set outdoor. Since I’ve done wildlife photography, I have enough experience shooting in public. I know how to make myself invisible. People usually don’t know that we’re shooting, in fact there was a scene where the actors had to argue, and the crowd thought that they were actually fighting, and cops came to clear the scene!” he smiles.

Apart from his wildlife ventures, what does he aim to do? “I have three scripts with me and I really feel like directing. I’ve become a better storyteller now, so I have the confidence that I can direct,” he says.