Right from take one cinematographer Abinandhan Ramanujam has been getting it right in Mollywood. He’s the one behind the arresting frames of Amen , Mosayile Kuthira Meenukal and Double Barrel , each shot of which has wowed audiences even if some of the films themselves have not. Abhinandan is only three films old, well, technically four, if you count upcoming Tamil flick China too, yet his cinematography belies his youth and relative inexperience.
With Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Amen and later Mosayile… , the 28-year-old Abinandhan, a native of Chennai, is credited with ushering in a new style of capturing visuals in Malayalam cinema, in which each frame is at once quirky, stunning and technically outstanding. Abhinandhan’s gone and upped the stakes in Lijo’s Double Barrel that’s in theatres now.
In the film he’s focussed his camera on the rarely-seen side of Goa; the quaint Goa that exists beyond its famed beaches and coconut trees; a Goa of graceful old buildings and ruins that hark back to its Portuguese colonial past; the Goa of isolated, grassy plateaus and undulating hills… all the while indulging in his love for experimenting with shots. Once again, we see shots taken from unconventional angles, in slow motion, high speed ones, long shots, ‘swinging’ shots and the likes, all of which we’ve come to identify as Abinandhan’s signature style.
“I love to travel and get very excited when I see new things and places. I guess it’s that excitement that gets translated on to the camera,” says Abinandhan, over a rickety phone line from the wilds of Mumbai.
He explains: “ Amen ’s location, Kumarakom, and its unconventional narrative were a totally new experience for me and my mind simply went into overdrive at the possibilities they presented. Hence, shots like the [much-feted] one-take song, ‘Shap song.’ Similarly, Mosayile… (directed by Ajith Pillai), which was shot in the virgin, azure and white landscapes of the Lakshadweep Islands… need I say more? Then in Double Barrel , Lijo and I made the decision to focus on Goa’s rusticity and architecture, which really has not been showcased much in films before. That coupled with the gangster-comedy narrative was a combination just waiting for experimentation. For China , directed by newbie Harshavardhan, A.R. Murugadoss’ protégé, we shot late at night in offbeat parts of Chennai such as Burma Bazaar and Sowcarpet, which in itself was a challenge… I look for scripts that interest me, inspire me and present enough scope for me to explore the limits of the camera. My idea of cinematography is director Stanley Kubrick’s idea – If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed!”
Abinandhan is a gold medalist from L.V. Prasad Film and TV Academy, Chennai, and also has a degree in visual communication from GRD College, Coimbatore. “I have been hooked to films since my college days. But I don’t believe in copying a film; films only inspire me to think different,” he adds.
He’s presently in Mumbai cranking the camera for a one-hour tele-film, Dobara , part of a pan-Asia directorial project, for friend and director Bejoy Nambiar. It was Bejoy who gave him his first break.
“It all happened because of a top-of-the-range camera – a Red Scarlet – that my parents, Ramanujam and Manimegalai, brought for me; alright, one that I begged from them as my share of the family inheritance! Bejoy came to know of it from my friend Akshay, editor Sreekar Prasad’s son, who was assisting him on TV series MTV Rush . He called and told me to get myself and my camera to Mumbai to be the DOP on the project,” recalls Abinandhan.
Prior to Bejoy’s offer and following film school, he kept alive his dream of working in films by shooting ads and short films, such as The Postman that won the National award for best non-feature film in 2009.
“Thanks to all those shorts, I developed a good network of contacts in the film industry to each of whom I’d show my diploma film,” he says. That paid off when Lijo, who had directed two episodes of MTV Rush , buzzed him out of the blue and offered him a chance as DOP for Amen . “And just like that I became a cinematographer. For a film to be visually good, the director also has to have a keen visual outlook. Thankfully, all my directors have had a keen visual sense too, giving me free rein to do my job and prompting me to think different,” he adds.
Like most cinematographers, then and now, it was a childhood passion for photography, in this case, imbibed from his father, a bank officer, which eventually led Abinandhan to films. That and an interest in sketching, which prompted his elder brothers, Aaranyan and Amjithanuptan, to urge him to eschew a degree in engineering for one in visual communication. “My father had an old Yashica camera and he was very particular about making sure that every last detail was right before he clicked the picture. Learning from him the art of attention to detail has stood me in good stead all this while.”
