Chennai-born colourist shines bright in Hollywood

CHENNAI: As Ben Affleck’s Air has gone on to become one of the most popular movies of the year already, meet the Chennai-born-and-raised Vijey Adithya Mohan Raj, who was part of the visual effects team and was credited for the same. “It is a great opportunity for a beginner to be part of such a big film. I landed the opportunity through my friend, who worked in the VFX team of Avatar: The Way of Water, and the Wonder Woman franchise. There is a particular software called Baselight, which is used in the post-production in a lot of Hollywood films. The team of Air wanted someone, who is proficient in the software, and that is how it happened to me,” he begins.

Vijey, basically a colourist, recently won the Best Colourist award for the film, A Fragile Heaven at the Los Angeles Cinematography Awards, along with several nominations in film festivals across Europe. “My tryst with colour grading began when I was a kid. I was exposed to a lot of English films even as a kid, and often wondered why Tamil films have refrained from providing such rich visuals. This intrigued me to get my own camera, and experiment with colour patterns and grading. I’ve started watching Tamil films and realised it is not all about technique — content quality matters. Hollywood gives the audience the same content whereas, the Tamil and Malayalam industry play around with content in a beautiful manner. In terms of technicality, we are almost where Hollywood is,” he explains.

Vijey says that Ponniyin Selvan franchise had the most cutting-edge technology in colour grading. “PS-1 was good, but Mani sir has focused on providing the best colour grading in PS-2. It was precise and it will make the film stand out even after 100 years,” says the colourist. He says that colourists should start getting due importance in coming years.

“Hollywood has started crediting them only recently in the middle of the screen. It was only rolling credits before this. ,” adds Vijey, who also has started working on his indie film.

“We have locked the script and will start with the pilot film later this year,” he says. On his other ventures, he says, “I recently acquired certification in remastering tech. I am working with leading companies like Paramount, Warner Bros and NBC. I have been remastering a few of their films digitally, but I can’t reveal their names as of now.”