He built a village. Temples bear the stain of time and whimpering mud houses snuggle with burly concrete ones to make the landscape in Santhosh Raman’s latest canvas — the recently-released Orissa . He engineered the rise of the remote Bhavanipatnam in Orissa at Gundalpet near Mysore.
When Santhosh along with director M. Padmakumar went on a reconnaissance to Orissa questing for an apt backdrop, they found Bhavanipatnam. “The moment I saw Bhavanipatnam I told the director this is what you find in Gundalpet,” recollects Santhosh. The film crew’s mammoth travel plans could be cut short and diverted to Gundalpet, closer by. The sets rose in 22 days and the money purse didn’t hurt.
Santhosh says trimming expenses is a lesson he learnt on the job. “Every film is a lesson and every place a new character.” He remembers director Ranjith’s words. “I had to build a farmhouse for Spirit and if I went to him with a budget of say Rs 20 lakhs, he would tell me, ‘Anybody can do it in this budget. But if you can do the same thing without design compromises in say eight lakhs that is what matters.’ I realised crisis management is the key,” says Santhosh.
The man who gives an artistic backdrop to Malayalam cinema sees his job as a healthy blend of imagination, vision and absolute practical application. The punch of art direction is in little details, he says. He recollects from his latest experience. “The weather in Orissa villages is dusty. We took care to create that dusty air in Gundalpet and did so by using an air compressor,” says Santhosh.
The art director is in Kozhikode, the city which is now home, making the sets for Ranjith’s latest venture Kadal kadannu oru Mathukutty . Taking a break at Hotel Maharani, Santhosh takes stock of his young career. Art direction clicks, says Santhosh, when the art director imbibes the vision of the director. Once the vision is decoded, imagination can take over. Santhosh digs out an instance from Spirit . “In the film, I designed bubbles as a separation between two rooms in Mohanlal’s house.” In a movie about a man whose moments at home were always centred on the fizz, such a backdrop made sense.
Research helps to understand a director’s grammar, he adds. “When I did Innatte Chintavishayam with Sathyan Anthikkad and cinematographer Azhagappan, I watched a lot of CDs of this combination. It helped me learn their thought. I used a slightly different colour tone in that film,” he says. Art direction is the culmination of Santhosh’s life-long affair with colours. He comes from a family in Thalassery which keeps a close link with theatre and amongst his earliest memories are those of his uncle diligently working on theatre backdrops. “My uncle created sets for plays and I have watched as he tried to make the backdrop as natural as can be,” says Santhosh.
Passion to profession
Painting and drawing, part of childhood, took on a serious tone as he studied fine arts in Thrissur. “Lure for me was applied art. I wanted to apply it to a place and also make it a source of livelihood,” says Santhosh. His next stop was the J.J. School of Art where he studied space orientation. He came back to pursue interior designing, instead stumbled into films.
The man who studied applied arts technically soon realised films were run on different dynamics. He recalls the general wariness he met with when a professional wanted to be an assistant. But doors slowly opened and he soon assisted in Shyamaprasad’s Akale . “The colour and thought of that film was very different.”
Sets, for Santhosh, are natural and realistic. “In terms of mood it is about visual magic. But it should blend well with the story and character. The sets are the background and should never stand out. A police station or a toddy shop should never appear like a set,” he says.
Replicating the real is a challenge, says Santhosh. “When I am creating an imaginary place I have a lot of freedom. But if I have to make the roadside eatery next to Hotel Maharani, I cannot afford to make an error.”
Among his challenging creations was the house in the Andamans for Aakashathinte Niram. “I had to start from emptiness. I had to wait for an entire day for something as simple as a nail. We had to build a house in such an environment.” Another creatively testing project is the upcoming Balyakalasakhi based on Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer’s work. “I have sourced lot of archival pictures on 1940’s Kerala through friends in Germany. Work on the film’s look has started and is being done around Palakkad and Ottappalam. It begins with making those little paala thoppi (hats made of areca leaves.) I am also doing Dr. Biju’s next.”
The art director who has 21 films to his credit, including noteworthy ones like Aakashathinte Niram and Indian Rupee, is not too pleased about the plight of art directors in Kerala. “We still do not have popular awards for an art director. An art director is integral to cinema and if the cinematographer is the right hand of a director, an art director is his left.”
The insolence of the mainstream has not hindered his artistic spirit though. He draws his raw material from books and travel. “My strength is reading and travelling. I keep a note of each striking visual I see, be it the rain or the fungus on the wall. You never know when it can be that realistic touch to a set.”
