Craig and I had a blast mixing 'Uttama Villain': Kunal Rajan

Uttama Villain

Sound designer Kunal Rajan found working with Oscar-winning sound mixer Craig Mann fabulous.

According to Rajan, the two had a blast mixing Kamal Haasan’s Tamil musical drama Uttama Villain. “Craig and I have worked together on a few Hollywood projects. When I was starting Uttama Villain , I asked him if he would be interested to mix an Indian film. He was so excited. He was telling me how he had just done Whiplash , and was very excited to do another musical,” said Rajan.

Craig, who pocketed an Oscar for his sound mix in the musical

Whiplash , was extremely collaborative and gave it his very best to make the movie sound the way it does, said Rajan. Rajan has also worked with Haasan in

Vishwaroopam .

The sound in

Uttama Villain would be much more realistic, unlike Vishwaroopam, where everything was larger than life, according to Rajan. “Everything that’s shown on screen has to convey emotions. It’s a film with strong emotional content,” he said.

Rajan also added that as portions of Uttama Villain would take audiences back to the eighth century, it was challenging to reproduce the right sounds of a bygone era. “There are a lot of period instruments such as swords and trumpets. It was challenging to capture these sounds. But thanks to a very good team, we pulled it off,” he said.