Young cinematographer Prasanna S Kumar is on cloud nine. Accolades have been pouring in for his brilliant photography in Sasi's recent flick Sivappu Manjal Pachai. A former assistant of biggies like PG Muthaiah and Ratnavelu and Kumaravelan, Prasanna turned independent with the sleeper hit Pichaikaran / Bichagadu, on a break given by Sasi.
A graduate from College of Arts, and having grown watching ace Balu Mahendra films, Prasanna has specialised in capturing street visuals. Sharing his experiences with the intense filmmaker Sasi, he says, “Sasi anna wants to portray visuals closer to reality. Even if you suggest grand locations, he would prefer only close-ups.”
Talking about the challenges in SMP, he said, “Since SMP is a story of a traffic cop and an illegal street race biker, we were to shoot several scenes on the roads of Chennai. The most challenging were the three important race and chase scenes shot in 8 days. We can't keep the camera on the road. So, we decided to shoot candidly. We would ask Siddharth and GV Prakash to start chase scenes as early as 5.30 am when there's hardly any traffic and follow them candidly in a speeding car. We shot in Ashok Nagar and Guindy in the city and in Pondicherry.”
