News
Cineom reaches superhit status in Bollywood
13 January 2009
From the soundtrack recorded on AR Rahman’s Neve 88R to the final mix on a DFC Gemini at FutureWorks, Cineom-supplied AMS Neve equipment was vital to the success of Jodhaa Akbar
The company’s name might not feature in the film’s credits, but Cineom Broadcast India Pvt Ltd, AMS Neve’s distributor in India, played a large role in the success of Jodhaa Akbar, one of the biggest Bollywood hits of 2008. The film, a historical drama directed by Ashutosh Gowariker and starring Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, won the audience award for Best Foreign Film at the 32nd Sao Paulo International Film Festival, and has so far grossed more than $12.5m, ranking as a superhit on BoxOfficeIndia.com.
Cineom’s clients were involved throughout the film’s soundtrack. The score was by AR Rahman – known as the Mozart of Madras – a world renowned musician and composer and a superstar in India. Rahman has his own studio in Chennai, fitted out with a Neve 88R supplied by Cineom. Sound re-recording for Jodhaa Akbar took place at Studio One on a Cineom-supplied AMS Neve VR Legend, while pre-mixing and the final mix took place on a DFC Gemini at FutureWorks.
An offshoot of Gaurav Digital (for whose film mixing studio Cineom had supplied India’s first 5.1-capable AMS Neve mixing desk), FutureWorks is a brand new facility, fitted out with the latest and best in digital audio and visual technology. Both FutureWorks and Gaurav Digital now have DFC Gemini consoles, supplied by Cineom.
Recent projects include Karzzzz (mixed at FutureWorks) and Drona, a spectacular superhero film, which required the services of both FutureWorks’s and Gaurav’s DFC Geminis.
‘Drona is one of the most heavily VFX-oriented pictures to have been made in India,’ says Sreejesh Nair, a Sound Editor at FutureWorks. ‘That meant the audio was also very complicated. This is exactly where the power and flexibility of the AMS Neve Gemini console came into play. Even as we were mixing, the picture edits kept coming. Incorporating these new edits became as easy as a few mouse clicks! Every nuance of the Encore automation was maintained without any issue.
‘Because it was such a complex soundtrack,’ he adds, ‘we needed to build a highly flexible mix setup that could be routed in any way we wanted. It was very easy to do that and still modify and update the setup as required, without losing out on any automation or mix movements.’
That, along with the Gemini’s ability to store multiple complex mixes, also allowed the director to keep his options open as long as possible.
‘Presenting A/B comparisons of the final mix for the director was easy, just the touch of a button. We confirmed the one he wanted and it was written. Over all, we had the full flexibility of a film mix console in a single user configuration, which is how we work here.’
As Sreejesh Nair concludes: ‘This is something so powerful and convenient that now you could not imagine doing it any other way.’ www.cineom.com.
