Twenty-six-year-old independent filmmaker Rathina Kumar is in a celebratory mood. His first independent film in Tamil, Surveillance Zone , has been winning accolades at various film festivals following its première at the International Indian Film Festival Toronto in August this year. The film also got a special mention at the ninth edition of the Dadasaheb Phalke Film Festival.
“I made the film with a shoestring budget of ₹45,000, with the sole intention of sending it to various film festivals,” says Rathina Kumar. From the time he was 14, he had a fascination for movies, and ended up making many short films. He was simply dabbling with the camera used by his father, a hobby photographer and a Tamil teacher in Nagercoil. After completing his degree in computer science, he had to take up a job in an IT company and move to Bengaluru. “But my passion was only growing bigger by the day, and four years ago, I quit my job. I am self-taught and began to buy equipment; I then started doing ad films and short films to be able to sustain myself,” he says. He was soon roped in as cinematographer for Lokesh Kumar’s independent film, My Son Is Gay (2018), and the Tamil film Bodha , directed by G Suresh the same year.
“The script and concept for Surveillance Zone was completed three years ago. It is a crime-thriller narrated from the point of view of a CCTV camera, which I think has not been attempted by anyone so far. The film was shot with a basic wide angle GoPro camera,” the director says. Once it was shot, the footage was deliberately degraded to get the CCTV effect.
The cameras were hidden in public spaces, including metro and railway stations. “Sound effects were manipulated to suit the images, thanks to the commendable work by foley engineers, Iqbal CM and Raguram Ravichandran, and foley recordist, T Guna, whose efforts made the film highly impactful,” he says.
Rathina Kumar says that he adapted the guerrilla filmmaking style, where cameras were hidden and nobody, apart from the cast and crew, knew of the filming.
“At times, I had to leave the camera for three days at a stretch at one location (for certain montages). The cooperation from my actors was immense. In fact, none of them took any remuneration. The overall experienceof making this film was an endearing one,” he says.
