A heart-to-heart chat with P. B. Chaki, one of the best Cinematographer of Tollywood..
How did you come to this industry?
Let me tell you one thing, I am here because I always wanted to be here. I was having a hobby for still photography. Suddenly I got a passion for cinematography. Afterwards I’ve assisted different people and learnt different technical aspects of camera. I’ve worked with Sudip Chaterjee, cinematographer of Road, Chak De! India, Iqbal for a long time. In 1990, I got my 1st remuneration on Anjan Das’s project.
First work as an Individual Cameraman..
As an Individual Cameraman, my first work was “Anyo Swapno” by Ashok Biswanathan. Then Sagar Kinare, Krantikaal and then Prabhat Roy’s Subhodristi and Pritribhumi has happened. Only for Prabhat Roy, I am here in mainstream cinema. And for parallel cinema the credit goes to Shekhar Das. I am thankful to him for Krantikal.
Difference between today and that day when you first started your career? The person who was getting Rs.150 /- per day, now a days he is getting Rs. 250/- per day. I don’t think it’s a big change, but yes changes happened in some places .On our time we had some respect to our senior colleagues. Today people are so arrogant and desperate; they don’t even care for the seniors. It was a responsibility of a team to finish a movie then. But due to increasing division of labor in these days, the responsibility is coming to director, assistant director, few artists and cameraman only. Other people hardly care for the project.
Yesterday's and today’s industry… When I came to industry, it was a bad period for Bengali films. Uttam Kumar just passed away. All studios are empty. No work for the technicians. When Uttam Kumar had gone away, he took away the audience with him too.
On that time Prabhat Roy, Sujit Guha, Anjan Choudhury just arrived in this industry. They again created audiences for the Bengali films. On that time Bengali films were heavily influenced by Hindi films. That means, hero is jumping from a 10th floor building and fighting with 20 people. We had seen Bombay in a bracket besides technician’s name in many films. It was a trend then. It was a big time for Bombay in a bracket.
Today’s scenario has totally changed. Now the influence is coming from south. In the recent past, many directors worked on Bengali literature, but present directors have a disregard to this literature. How much knowledge they have on Bengali literature?? I can leave dozens of question marks here. But they have a strong logic that audience won’t watch this kind of film. Audiences are not alien. If we are still thinking, if we use any English word without translation suburban audiences will not understand, then we are absolutely wrong. The filmmaker of today should visit the suburban side of West Bengal to understand the present scenario. No one wears Dhoti on our village today. They are even using denim. They have the radical change on their way of thinking. They can understand different things easily. But our directors are still busy in copycat process from south; they don’t have any time to think on it.
Quality of Bengali Cinema.. Actually the producers and directors of today are not too much quality conscious. Even the artists don’t bother for the quality. But we have the potentiality to produce good technical movies. Today a director is concerning a producer that he can complete the movie within 18 days. A basic script completion required minimum 35 days. If someone commits that he will finish this job within 18 days, it means that he don’t even care for the quality, he wants only quantity. He doesn’t allow any artist to take more than 3 takes. He wants only his work done.
But in parallel movie, directors are really working great as per technical aspect. Because they know educated people will watch their film.
Mainstream filmmakers are concentrating on suburbs. Actually they are busy to make money. But they don’t look over the dollar, euro in the overseas market, cause duplicate, rubbish things are not accepted by NRIs. They want to watch proper Bengali films.
Still I am hopeful that auspicious days of Bengali film industry is coming, cause educated people are increasing in the industry. If you consider it’s an industry, then I must say not even a single industry can run properly without educated people.
Any good memory.. One day I got a call from an unknown number. An old lady said “We usually stay in Kolkata every year in this time. Yesterday we’ve watched Mahul Bani at Nandan. We felt that it was a visit to that village. Tomorrow we will again watch that movie. Will you please join us?” Next day I met them and watched that movie together. Then we had our dinner. On dinner table we were discussing about Mahul Bani, just like we went to visit some place. It’s really a big reward for me.
Your future project.. Kaaler Rakhal by Shekhar Das. Maya bazaar featured by Rupa Ganguly ,Handa Bhonda of Zee Motion Pictures featured by Mithun Chakraborty and some others without name.
Fantastic interview....so straight forward and honest comments....I loved and enjoyed the reading....Wish Chaki da all the best...May you soon do all those things you want to ....take care
pore khub valo laglo.Sotti bengla cinema chaile r o valo hote pare.jodi a e uneducated lok gulo kichu ta creativity dekhai.kintu sai murod tuku o tader modhyea nai.
Chaki, apart form being an excellant cinematographer he is a good friend, good poet,loveable person, steals the show with is unique power of communication... it is really an honour to be associated with him.... Chakida, wish you all the best..
Chakida is way ahead of his time here in Tolly. His work in Chirodini Tumi Je Amar is just mind blowing. I would have loved a few more questions, about some frank funny candid moments behind the camera.
Kousani is right he quiet ahead of his time.He knows his work very well.A Perfect gentleman,lion heart , everybody is well informed , about the scenario , but nobody has the guts to speck it publicly..
I salute you.
hii tito da... nice to hear from u like this way...about the real frame of tolly industry...yah..at some point we also feel the same as the viewer. and nothing to say more about ur work... seta tomar kajei proman.. as a very good friend, I wish u all good luck for a brighter future!!!
hii tito da... nice to hear from u like this way...about the real frame of tolly industry...yah..at some point we also feel the same as the viewer. and nothing to say more about ur work... seta tomar kajei proman.. as a very good friend, I wish u all good luck for a brighter future!!!
Tito-da (that's what I have been calling him since my childhood) showed where motivation and the strong passion can lead a man - being a brother, I know it better than anybody that he had no "filmy background" - wish that this strong deisre and committment will bring a lot more success in days to come
bishesh bujhi na. dekhi ni.
may not agree with
many of your statements as well.
kintu ei interview er honesty ta bhalo laglo.
that's it.
not too many filmmakers and dops are so today.
cheers!
