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FILM SCHOOL
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Quality control and professionalism, essential attributes of a filmmaker cannot be taught
in a classroom, but are practical qualities imbibed by students spending hours at the
grading rooms or the telecine suites of the Prasad Labs in Chennai. Hariharan, head of
LV Prasad Academy tells us how film schools are gearing up for the new age student.
Prasad Academy, an
initiative of Prasad Film
Laboratories, Chennai is
headed by Hariharan, a man
committed to imparting
film education and the
love of cinema to earnest
hopefuls dreaming of making it big on the
silver screen.
“At the LV Prasad Academy, we first instill
in students the importance of cinema as team
work with no one playing ‘auteur’,” he says.
“Next, we make them understand that the
only way to bring about change is by taking
the so-called popular Indian Cinema practices
seriously in film pedagogy, while at the same
time sensitising oneself to the myriad social
problems that beset the underprivileged and
lastly, we encourage students to think and work
with modern digital tools, both as an aesthetic
principle and as technological apparatus,”
he adds.
In fact, according to him,
today’s students are far more
visually oriented and most
of them manage to make
short films before they join
the Academy. “But one
big problem we find is that
they are not as exposed to
the other liberal art forms
such as painting, sculpture,
architecture, theatre and so
on, something common for
the student of cinema in the
60s,” he says. The lack of this exposure poses
a new challenge according to Hariharan. “Our
challenge in imparting good film training is to
help students find a median; make them realise
the importance of a holistic art perspective while
also engage with new media such as the internet
and interactive digital applications,” he says.
Finally each individual will need to develop a
genuine understanding of Indian mainstream
films and filmmakers instead of looking down
upon them or succumbing to the chaotic ways of
the industry’s working, according to Hariharan.
For him, it is very important to make a student
aware of the fact that no one is out to make a
‘bad’ film. Awards or critic’s responses must not
be the yardstick of their judging a film – popular
response also matters a lot.
“We have now arrived at a juncture of time
when rapid digitisation of the art of cinema is
ever-growing,” he says. He gives the example of
how when colour negative first came, it had to
K Hariharan
face obstacles from the masters of black and
white, in the early 60’s.
Even the approach of a student to cinema has
changed now – they want to be ‘original’ or
‘different’ from anything done before. “But
we are yet to realise the full potential of a
standard digital chip camera,” he says.
To him, the old distinctions between directors,
cinematographers or editors would ultimately
disappear. “Only the good story-tellers
will survive,” he says. He also stresses the
importance of more women joining cinema as
technical persons in a male-dominated world.
In conclusion, Hariharan
says cinema is as much
a ‘personal’ expression
as much as it is also an
industrial product for
mass consumption. “So a
filmmaker must learn that
what he or she makes should
be a saleable product and
just not a film made to satisfy
his or her creative urges,” he
concludes.
I