India’s Acclaimed Cinematographers Create Onscreen Magic with Panasonic Varicam

Last Friday, the box office was abuzz with the release of the two of the most anticipated movies of the year - Mani Ratnam’s ‘Chekka Chivantha Vaanam’ and Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma starrer - ‘Sui Dhaaga –Made in India’. The latter one is an inspirational narrative which showcases the hardships that gradually translate into success.

The movie captures - visual imagery in its natural form, enactment that’s louder than its actors and is a treat for the audience, all translated into reality through Panasonic’s professional cinema camera ‘Varicam’. The camera is part of Panasonic’s long line of professional cinematography specific products, that is designed to record pure uncompressed RAW of up to 120 fps on to the industry-standard Codex Capture Drive 2.0 media. Cinematographers prefer by its ability to shoot clean videos in extremely well lit and low light scenarios, a phenomenon which was well and truly on display across all the trailers of ‘Sui Dhaaga’.

Ace Cinematographer, Anil Mehta who was the Cinematographer for the movie said, “Translating words into evocative images is a challenge for any artist, more so for cinematographers today, when there is a constant bombardment of visuals around us.” Speaking about the Panasonic Varicam he said, “Panasonic Varicam is a top of the league camera which has an additional feature of double sensor. The camera’s ability to shoot in any kind of lighting environment came in very handy whilst I was shooting Sui Dhaaga. The colour reproduction remained faithful, in its truest form over the entire exposure and the raw files had the usual wealth of information on both sides. The prowess of the Varicam came into play to make it look real so that India’s masses can resonate with the film”. With a career spanning over two decades, Mr. Mehta is an acclaimed cinematographer known for movies such as Kal Ho Na Ho, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Highway to name a few.

Mr. Omkar Talwar, Assistant General Manager – Media & Entertainment, Connected Solutions Division, Panasonic India, said,“ Amongst the diverse range of technology offerings, Varicam is one of the finest cameras developed by Panasonic for film making and drama production. It gives the cinematographers and directors the creative freedom to express their truest emotions. Equipped with Panasonic’s in-house imaging technology it helps capture moments in its original form and represent the vibrant spirit of Bollywood. It is a privilege for us to be the technology mastermind behind one of the most anticipated movies of the present age - Sui Dhaaga. We wish them all the very best of luck”.

A founder member of Indian Society of Cinematographers and the only Indian member of American Society of Cinematographers, ASC Santosh Sivan, has won awards for movies such as Dil Se.., Roja, Kalapani (Malayalam), Iruvar (Tamil) to name a few. He is also the cinematographer of the much awaited Mani Ratnam film, ‘Chekka Chivantha Vaanam’ shot on Panasonic Varicam, which had a theatrical release on 27th September. Talking about his experience of using Panasonic Varicam Mr. Santosh Sivan said, “I tested a lot of cameras for this movie. I liked the feel of the Panasonic camera, not just the colour, but also for the dual native ISO which it incorporates. I used the Varicam 5000 ASA feature for most of the shots, to light up the interiors and set it to high exposures. This helped me to easily use depth of field, since we had a lot of scenes where we had characters right in front of the camera, as well as in the background. It eventually led to a very realistic feel with every character in focus,” Varicam incorporates a modular design whereby the 4K camera head is separate from but dockable to the common, shared recording module (AU-VREC1G) or Codex raw recorder using the same camera head to best suit their creative needs. Varicam’s sensor captures 14+ stops of latitude, capturing high-contrast and wide dynamic range. The camera offers a broad range of codecs and formats, including Panasonic’s AVC-ULTRA family of advanced codecs, Apple ProRes, and 3.5-Mbps proxy recordings.