Digital technology has revolutionised filmmaking as well as the viewing experience, but it has also wiped out many processes that accompanied celluloid

When fans of Rajini, Aamir and Shah Rukh whistled and welcomed their hero in Kochadaiiyaan, Dhoom 3 and Ra.One, little did they realise they were also welcoming the digital age of film, and bidding farewell to celluloid. Without computers and digital technology, none of these could have been made.

The atmosphere is tense as the hero walks into the villain’s den. The background music slowly reaches a crescendo and, suddenly, from behind a curtain, the villain jumps out and…. There is a snap, the entire audience is silent, the images on screen disappear and the screen turns a brilliant white. The steady whirr of the projector is all that is heard till the catcalls and whistles take over. The projectionist quickly threads the film and the show continues. This is what most of us have experienced in those lovely art deco buildings – the standalone cinema halls.

Cinema was also called film, because the medium used was film, a strip of cellulose coated with light-sensitive chemicals. The soundtrack was captured on the side of the film.

Cinema goes through three distinct stages — shooting, post-production and exhibiting or screening. It has two major parts — image and sound. In the early 1930s, both image and sound were captured directly on film till the invention of playback singing — attributed to the genius of sound recordist Raghavan and the vision of AVM for the film Nandakumar (1938). This was pathbreaking as it delinked audio from video.

The first to leave film was post-production. Songs and sounds were captured and mixed on audio tape, and when fully prepared, transferred back to the film print. “Even in the 1970s, cinema halls had not moved from mono to stereo. Despite this, one of the first to embrace stereo technology from Dolby was the Kamal Haasan film Kuruthippunal (1995). India, with its import restrictions, moved straight to the digital sound age, skipping the stereo age,” says Jayendra of Real Image. This was improved by technology developed by DTS for Steven Spielberg’s film Jurassic Park.

Editing using a computer solved a lot of problems and gave the filmmaker the opportunity to view multiple edited options without having to cut and splice the film over and over again, physically. Again, a Kamal Haasan film, Mahanadi was the first commercial feature film to be edited on AVID outside Hollywood. After I had finished my dubbing for Mahanadi, Kamal who was present, asked me to see this amazing machine edit a fight sequence.

Another area which digitisation has made extremely efficient and simple is colour correction and image creation. A classic example is how a part of Konkan Railway was made to look in the Shah Rukh-starrer Chennai Express. The temple scene shot in the Vattamalai Murugan Temple near Kangeyam was digitally changed to a Venkateshwara Temple with more steps introduced. Many discerning fans asked me how I sported vibhuthi in a Vaishnavite temple — one of the drawbacks of digitisation without adequate background information.

Today, the growth of digital projection systems has seen a quantum leap. Less than five per cent of the 850-plus theatres in Tamil Nadu remain with traditional film projectors. Now there is no film, just a hard disc which has the same security features available in an ATM, making it pilfer proof. The projector room is no longer needed. In fact, in some multiplexes, the projector can be seen on the ceiling near the snack bar. All the projectors in the complex can be controlled from one central place where the server is stored. In today’s technology, the projectionist can control the projector from his mobile phone.

The actual shooting process has also undergone a significant change. The video camera recorded images in pixels. The greater the number of pixels, the better the quality of the image. George Lucas in 2001 made Star Wars – The attack of the Clones entirely on a digital camera, paving the way for others to follow. This digital shooting has brought down filmmaking costs considerably, encouraging many newcomers and small-budget films such as Goli Soda and Marina. I remember, for the film Mr. Romeo, a huge 50 kg Mitchell camera was used for all the “double action” shots. Today, I work on films that are shot with a still camera.

Many MGR and Sivaji-starrers had fans taking the film cans from the distributors’ office to the theatre in a big procession. Raja Raja Chozhan’s prints were taken on top of an elephant. In Tiruchi, the fans hired a helicopter and showered flower petals on the print. Many an MGR film was taken to the theatre on horse-drawn carriages. Producer/ Director Bhim Singh used to take the 5 reel to Tirupathi, while Devar took the first print to Palani and Marudhamalai for special pujas. Devar sent this Print to Wellington Theatre, as it was considered his lucky one. The can of a film came to represent the entire product, the process and the people behind it, and not just a tool.

While digital technology has given the viewer a greater audio-visual experience, the romance of cinema is still in that reel of celluloid.

Mohan Raman is a film and television actor, and management trainer.