It was through a pure, even laughable, accident that Robin Kunjukutty became a sound designer. He remembers how as a boy who loved watching movies, the word ‘editing’ appearing in film credits caught his attention. “For some reason, I dreamed of becoming an editor one day though I knew zilch about the true meaning of the word editing,” recounts the 27-year-old, a native of Sasthamkotta, Kollam. In his mid-teens, Robin did ‘edit’ wedding videos to gain some “elementary, first-hand experience.”
But a chance glance at a newspaper ad inviting application for an ‘editing’ course at an academy in the capital city inevitably had him trying his luck. But the penny dropped only once the classes started, that it was in fact a diploma in sound editing. “Though embarrassed to admit my own silly boo-boo, I soon started taking a liking for what I was learning,” he says. As a fresher, all of 19, he took a train to Mumbai.
Robin considers himself lucky to have come under the wing of sound designer Niraj Gera (of Newton- fame), a “boss who gave him the full freedom” to experiment and learn. He got his breakthrough in the 2012 neo noir film B.A. Pass where he cut his teeth as an assistant sound editor. Today, Robin, who goes by the industry name Robinkkutty, is another technician in a long list of Malayalis who have made a mark in Bollywood sound department.
Though the bulk of his work has been in Hindi, the sound designer and editor has also made his mark in Mollywood, with movies such as the award-winning Ottaal , Sakhavu , Adventures of Omanakuttan , Eeda , and Tharangam bearing testimony. But Robin feels the high points of his career so far have been the opportunity to work with avant-garde director Anurag Kashyap in Ugly and Raman Raghav 2.0 for which he did the sound editing.
Most recently, he was part of the Malayalam science fiction film Who , which Robin counts as a unique experience due to the challenges posed by the subject.
“The film revolves around the theme of time-travel and sounds were integral for its effective depiction and transitions. We used several acclaimed Hollywood films as reference. I had to download and buy certain sounds from cloud portals to incorporate in the film,” he says over phone from Mumbai.
Robin does admit to an inclination to do “artsy, experimental or substance-driven” films over commercial releases. His growing filmography, which boasts movies such as Ivan Ayr-directed Soni , acclaimed documentary 18 Feet and Manjhi: The Mountain Man, to name a noted few, attests to this. Also to his credit is French documentary Sthir . A couple of Malayalam films are now lined up though Robin doesn’t want to disclose their titles yet.
Though it’s a competitive world, Robin says he is not surprised to see so many Malayalis working behind-the-scenes in Bollywood. “One reason for that may be the relatively higher number of Malayalis passing out of in FTTI (Film and Television Institute of India), Pune. Also, many in the industry say Malayalis seem to possess a sharper sense and sensibility for sound,” he says with a laugh. Sound reasoning!
