“Girgit”, the latest product to come out of the Tulu film industry, was released just a few days ago, on August 23 and has already grossed over Rs 1 crore at the box office. The Roopesh Shetty and Rakesh Kadri directorial has been receiving rave reviews ever since its release and many are attributing the success to the more modern approach of the filmmakers.
The Tulu film industry has seen a boom over the past few years, with new blood coming in, bringing with them the flavour and vigour of the new generation. Over the years, the industry has seen a change in format and style, slowly moving away from the traditional and towards the modern, like “Girgit”.
Although the film is more modern and distinct from its predecessors, it is still poles apart from the other language film industries in India, especially Bollywood. The main differentiator is the financial resources. While Bollywood has ready access to funds, as it is more mainstream, the Tulu film industry has to make do with what little funding they get. The success of the film then depends on the entire team working as a family, improvising and not focusing on the pay.
What makes “Girgit” so different?
Source: Gulf News
Like most Tulu films, “Girgit” falls under the comedy genre, however, the makers of the film have tried to go several steps further to make the cinematic experience unique for moviegoers.
Despite all the constraints, the team behind the film has used a lot of modern techniques to make it stand apart from its predecessors. One such example is the use of foley and SFX (special effects) as Roger Loren, Foley and Sound Design Supervisor explains.
“To have a better edge, the makers went to greater lengths to improve upon existing practices with regard to cinematography, music, sound design and foley,” Roger said.
Even before he began working on the film, he noticed how the team employed every trick in the book when it came to cinematography and direction.
With regard to the technical aspects, the team gave increased importance to the foley recording, sound effects and background music.
“The SFX and Foley Department has always been side-lined in the Tulu Film industry. For example, earlier, sounds of lower importance were skipped and covered up with music and the same sounds were used repeatedly,” Roger explains.
“Even the background music was composed and created from scratch by Darrel Mascarenhas and Joel Rebello, making the experience more intimate and immersive for the moviegoers. A lot of other Tulu movies have budget constraints and resort to royalty-free stock music,” he added.
What are foley and sound design?
A lot of moviegoers think that the sounds they hear are recorded on the scene while shooting. While this is done in rare cases, mostly, the sounds one hears are added later on in the post-production phase.
Once the film is shot, the director sends the reels which contain only the video and dubbed dialogues. From there, every other aspect of the audio is added by the team handling the background music, foley and sound design.
“Foley is an extremely tedious task. Even if an extra in one of the scenes scratches his head in the corner of the shot, I have to ensure that I record and put in a scratching sound that is in sync with his actions,” Roger explained.
“For the fight scenes, for example, I utilised sounds of vegetables being twisted and broken to mimic the sounds of the actors’ bones cracking,” he added.
Source: Project Ability
Sound Design, on the other hand, is a completely different ball game. It involves the addition of synthesized or sampled sounds to the film, to further enhance the experience of the viewer.
“It includes all those swishy-swooshy sounds, massive thuds during scary scenes, things like that,” he said.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges faced by the team was the fact that the main film team was in Mangaluru, Darrel Mascarenhas was in the USA and Roger was in Mumbai.
“Although there was a difference in location and time zones, I had absolutely no worries about any technical aspects, because the team was very talented, patient and professional,” he said.
Throughout the process, Roger remained in constant contact with director Roopesh and Darrel, who gave him the freedom to do what he wanted.
“This project was very personal for me. I had wanted to work on a Tulu film for the longest time as I wanted to make my fellow Mangalureans proud,” Roger said.
Another challenge, as previously mentioned, was the budget constraints.
“Rather than compromise on quality, I decided to improvise. I pulled favours from my friends in Mumbai’s music industry and worked at their studios when necessary. I used my recording expertise to do a lot of the foley recording with my personal studio gear at my home setup. It was very challenging as I had to step out of my comfort zone, but it was also very exciting,” he said.
Girgit is a comedy-drama produced by Manjunath Attavar and stars Roopesh Shetty and Shilpa Shetty in prominent roles and Roshan Shetty is the antagonist. Popular Tulu comedian Aravind Bolar, Bhojaraj Vamanjoor, Naveen Padil, Umesh Mijar and Sandeep Shetty are also part of the cast.
The cinematography is by Niranjan Das and editing is by Raahul Vasishta.
The film is still being screened in houseful shows in theatres here and in the Gulf, even a week after its release.
Photos by Sumanth Shetty
