When he was still in school, Anil Krishnan would clandestinely watch movies.
Not just must-watch ‘first day first show’ films, but also pure cinema. He sat mesmerised in a darkened hall as the characters flickered on screen.
He would notice everything — the story, the music, the acting, the editing, the dialogues — and have endless discussions with his friends. The films would linger long in his mind.
That passion is what drove a boy from Coimbatore to take up a degree in visual communication — he studied at Dr. GRD College of Science — and headed to Chennai to make and edit short films. Anil, 26, is in the news now for his seamless editing of R.S. Prasanna’s On A Quest , a bio-pic on Swami Chinmayananda. It is Anil’s first feature. Next up is Balaji Sakthivel’s Ra Ra Rajasekhar . And, finally, Anil’s The Lost Paradise is one of the six short films being screened in theatres as part of Karthik Subbaraj’s Bench Talkies — The First Bench , on March 6.
But, Anil’s journey, like that of many new-age directors, began with short films. “I worked on many projects during college. I made films, edited my friends’ works. It was great learning,” he says. So far, he has an oeuvre of about 150 films, including corporate films.Anil considers Prasanna a mentor of sorts. For, it was he who gave Anil a sense of direction when he joined a call-centre in Chennai to fund his passion. “I attended a workshop he conducted and was hooked. It was through him that I got to work on On A Quest .” The young editor-filmmaker travelled with Prasanna’s crew to Dharamshala for spot editing.
The film has lovely transitions and scenes where the present and the past segue. “It was magical, in the lap of the Himalayas,” he says. About 70 per cent of the film was edited during shooting. The film demanded a leisurely pace of editing, and Anil says that was a huge challenge and a learning experience. “I went in for slow dissolves and fade-outs and a lot of close-ups. The film is about thought processes and I wanted a feel that allows viewers to dwell on the happenings on screen.”
As for Ra Ra… , Anil says that he was initially called to do the spot editing for the film, but was later roped in as full-time editor. There’s a Quest connection to this — Siddhartha Nuni is the cinematographer for this film too. Anil has been working on his own film script too. He has been approached for some other projects, but, for now, he’s most eagerly awaiting the First Bench . The series will also release in Coimbatore, the city that fuelled his film dreams.
