Bringing Things To Life -Cinematographer Sathish Shankutty

World Traveler and Cinematographer Sathish Shankutty

All you have to do is just point the camera and push the red button and that’s all there is to being a cinematographer. Right? Oh yeah…and everything you need to learn about taking “motion” pictures will only take you five minutes. Right? Hey, here’s another one: Everyone can be a cinematographer because today’s camera make it so easy that you really don’t have to do anything" the camera will do it all for you. Right?

 

Well, these are rather silly statements and although they are frequently heard and said by the non-educated and the random unsophisticated film goers, none of them are correct and should be explored more thoroughly in order to find the real truth about cinematography and its practitioners. We asked the well-established Indian director of cinematography, Sathish Shankutty, about these points and he had a lot to say.

 

He has worked on quite a few short films, TV movies, Feature-length films and TV series and he told us that even though holding a camera and pushing the red button looks pretty simple there is a lot more to it than that. For instance, he threw it back into our laps and asked us how would we shoot in the rain, the fog, the bright sunlight, the snow, at the beach on a lake or ocean and how would we light and properly capture people’s different skin tones? Of course, we had no idea where to start because we hadn’t a clue where to begin. He then proceeded to tell us that each time he shoots a film new cinematography problems come up that have to be solved either the day before  the actual shoot or minutes before the director says, “Action.”

 

He told us that when he was the cinematographer on Desert Sai: The story of a Killing, he had a whole range of lighting and exposure issues because the production was being shot in the bright and very hot and dusty desert. He had to do some testing with the camera at different settings in order to be ready to roll on that location. Sathish understands about being prepared because he is a professional cinematographer. He has been working steadily since moving to California and he is currently working on the documentary Escape from Freedom.