It’s joy unspeakable. It’s a colorful reality of historical wonder. It’s an experience that cannot be explained with words. It’s a dream that shaped as blissful reality. It’s black and white Mayabazaar that turned color.
I feel fortunate for watching the color Mayabazaar completely today in an exclusive show. I feel gifted for lifting the opportunity of being among the first few to watch this historical wonder much before its actual release (after the legends ANR and Gummadi.. and before the entire world!!!). I feel blessed for getting the opportunity of sharing the happiness with all my fellow Telugu movie lovers.
Mayabazaar has been my childhood fantasy. Today the soil of my childhood smelled in my heart watching this wonderful movie with unbelievable technical extravaganza. I express kudos to Gold Stone that made this colorful and ‘sounding’ greater.
Relishing the grandeur of colorful Mayabazaar is one memorable thing and interviewing the man behind this dream is totally a greater experience. The man is Jagan Mohan, the Media Head of Goldstone, the visionary, who drove this entire show from start to end. He shared his experiences of gluing colors to Mayabazaar in an exclusive chitchat with me this afternoon. Let us sail into this great wonder of world cinema (yes it is…..)
1. Throw some light on this mission- Mayabazaar-Color…How it has come to the hands of Goldstone and how the dream of coloring it, shaped?
A. Vijaya Vauhini had sold the rights of this movie to Vijayawada based Venkataratnam who holds the banner Vijaya Pictures. A person by name Srinivas owned this from Vijaya Pictures in due course of time and finally Gold Stone acquired rights from him. The colorization of this film took about 6 months and cleaning up of audio by erasing unnecessary and disturbing sounds and shaping it with DTS took 1.5 months. Totally, the final output of our dream has come out after 7.5 months. 165 technicians have worked on this day in and out. We worked on 2, 44,000 frames where each frame used to take 15-20 minutes on an average to color up to the perfection with 165 experts.
2. What were the challenges you faced while dealing with its sound track?
A. That’s quite interesting. The sound of Mayabazaar was mono and that too recorded in Live Orchestra. When we decided to upgrade its quality the first challenged we faced was its LIVE effect. Today’s musicians and sound engineers have got accustomed to equalizers. But that is not there here. So we had called for many music experts to aggrandize the effect of sound and BGM (back ground music) with new recording and mixing. We also took care in getting it glued to the flavor of original. Finally we got succeeded.
3. What is the budget incurred on this project totally?
A. For colorization, DTS and stretching it from 35 MM to Full Scope, we spent around Rs 8 Cr. It is first of its kind in the world that an old film getting DTS and stretch from 35mm to full scope as a part of restoration and development.
4. What do you say about the standards of colorization we have at present and possibilities in future?
A. Today is not like yesterday and tomorrow will not be like today. The technology improves from time to time. The quality of films down the line those come in this genre will be far better.
5. What are the films those are in your hand and wish to deal with right now?
We are working on Patala Bhairavi, Jagadeka Veerudu, Appu Chesi Pappu Koodu, Missamma, Gundamma Katha, Rechukka Pagati Chukka, Chandraharam, Pelli Chesi Choodu, Shavukaaru, Swayamvaram (1980 release) etc..We owned these films from Vijaya banner.
6. So far how many films got glued with colors by your team?
A. ‘Gundamma Katha’ and ‘Missamma’ are ready to come out. They are at present ready for TV resolution. So any TV channel can purchase rights from us to transmit the color version. For film screen, we need to work little more on that. We wish to do that basing on the feedback we get for Mayabazaar.
7. Which part made you sweat out while coloring Mayabazaar?
A. Many ….. Vivaha Bhojanambu was a challenge as there were many food items those need to be colored. First, our experts had colored the laddus yellow. But I was not satisfied. I brought a few laddus from sweet shop and made my team work on bringing the same color to the laddus on monitor. Nee Kosame ne jeevinchunadi proved the toughest song to color as the negative got damaged to large extent. But we could manage to great extent without letting audience know the disturbance. ‘Dayacheyandi..’ song was another challenge with respect to time-consumption as there were huge number of elements to color. But that is the richest song of all in appearance. Lahiri Lahiri is another song where we competed with Markus Bartley’s cinematography in bringing out moonlight up to perfection. We are proud and happy for that. And at the same time we salute Markus Bartley and great technicians of 1957 those made such a wonder with limited resources.
8. What is the bench mark for you in gluing colors to Maya bazaar? Is that Mughal E Azam?
A. We are far ahead of Mughal E Azam that used just 65,000 colors. We used 16.7 million color shades. Just see the difference and conviction one gets while watching on big screen. Every colored frame will be on par with reality. Akkineni Nageshwara Rao garu told us after watching the movie, ‘I feel Mayabazaar was a color film all these years but people misled us by showing only B and W version and hiding color one”! That’s the conviction everyone gets while watching this flick.
9. Do you feel this color Mayabazaar add value for next generation?
A. Definitely. No child in new generation watches a black and white flick. Coloring Mayabazaar is nothing but pumping life into it for another 100 years or more through our future generations. My daughter is the best example for this. I have tried several times for making her watch Mayabazaar. But she negated looking at the black and white flavor. But now she is watching it, as it’s in color and ‘sounding’ contemporary with all effects.
10. What do you say for conventionalists those say, ‘don’t spoil the classic black and white films by coloring it’?
A. I would only say that Black and White is not an art form but only a result of lack of technology. Technical expertise is grown now. We are restoring it. If black and white is so great and carries classic appeal, why can’t the film makers make films in black and white in color-era continuously? Mayabazaar would have gone into history, had we neglected for a couple of years. The negative of the film was damaged very badly. Now Mayabazaar is born again, in color and with contemporary sound.
11. When is this color Mayabazaar coming on to screen?
A. It’s releasing on 30th of January 2010 that is in another 4 days with 60 prints state wide. Overseas screening rights are yet to be sold. The interested parties for overseas rights can contact us at Hyderabad @ 09963935551 (Jagan Mohan, Media Head, Goldstone), 09963275500 ( D P Srinivas, Executive Director, Goldstone) and 08008200220 (Suresh Kumar, Co-Ordinator)
As a film critic, after watching the color Mayabazaar in DTS sound effects, I only feel, if 2009 has scene the technical wonder Magadheera on Telugu screen, it is going to be Mayabazaar in 2010.
As Gold Stone Media Head Jagan Mohan interviewed by SiraSri
- (SiraSri can be reached at sirasri@gmail.com)
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