It’s a YouTube video. A sketch of the child Kamal Haasan in Kalathur Kannamma segues seamlessly into another of the young actor being carried by Sivaji Ganesan. A voice in the background tells the story of Kamal’s life before he became ‘Ulaganaayagan’. The three-minute video is just the first episode of a documentary called The Master and the Masterpiece now on YouTube.
The makers are Arun and Rajesh, two corporate guys who could not afford to take a break from their jobs to pursue their filmmaking ambition. Their Eureka moment arrived when they discovered that Kamal would soon be celebrating his 60th birthday. And, as if the universe was conspiring, they met and befriended Lakshmanan (Latchu), an artist famous for making sketches of people in the news. And when Karthik Srinivas of Noise and Grains Productions stepped in to bring the team together, they finally got their big idea. They decided to make a video documentary on Kamal Haasan to be released in parts on YouTube. The idea was easy, the execution wasn’t. As this wasn’t an official documentary, they had to rely mainly on YouTube videos, old newspaper stories, and TV interviews to piece the actor’s life together. “For instance,” says Arun, “we learned that Kamal was introduced to K. Balachander by Gemini Ganesan from an old interview of AVM Saravanan.”
The video, they decided, would consist of stylised animations of Latchu’s sketches of Kamal. “We had to get pictures of the actor in various stages of his life and have them sketched. It was very difficult to get old pictures,” says Arun. And when they did, they found to their dismay that they often weren’t clear or, worse, were damaged. “We gave the artist the liberty of completing the sketches from imagination.” In that sense, it’s not really a documentary. “A proper documentary entails a big budget, scheduling interviews, hiring camera equipment…,” says Karthik. Also, using film videos would cause licensing problems, so they stuck to sketches with some original music and narration.
The pilot episode was released on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, with an episode promised each week. And how did they ensure accuracy? Karthik says it was vetted by Nikil Murugan, a star publicist who also works for Kamal. Guess who they plan to do next? Rajinikanth, of course.
What do they hope to get out of it? Popularity, maybe, and maybe a photo op with Kamal himself. That’s all? “Okay, maybe he might refer to us by name when shaking our hands?”
