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Rajeev Jain – Indian Photography
Life through the lens ….
What I can say, I have been filming the movie from …
Over the years, I had the opportunity to work with many of the best filmmakers around. The good thing is that I was exposed to many approaches and styles. I learned what I liked and learned how to solve a variety of lighting conditions.
My favorite is the style of lighting to shoot with a natural, motivated light sources. I like working with large soft sources and then "paint" in the shadow areas. I work very hard to ensure that any story is greater than is being told and communicated with the light and images.
For me, the best photograph is the kind that takes you to another world? photo brings the experience of history and makes you quickly forget you're watching a movie. Seamless realistic.
The great masters of light that inspired me Spinnoti include Dante, ASC Heat, The Insider, Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC Sugarland Express, The Deer Hunter, Don Burgess, ASC Cast Away, Contact, and John Toll for his brilliant work in Legends of the Fall. Finally, the great master of light in my opinion, is Rembrandt. His art has been truly inspiring to me. My favorite piece is The Polish Rider, a magnificent work of art.
I admire directors include Akira Kurosawa's Ran, Tony Scott's Enemy of the State, Gladiator Ridley Scott, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, and Michal Mann Executives and heat.
I have been blessed by being able to make a living doing what I love doing. "
A CONVERSATION WITH Rajiv Jain (ICS / WICA)
Q: Where were you born and raised?
Rajiv Jain: I was born on November 29, 1964 in a Civil Hospital in Lucknow, India, in a working class (Indian term lower middle class family), core of the family speaks Hindi. I spent my formative years in Etawah found in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. That's where I grew up. It was a one horse town with a bank of a horse. I had a big boy, though the hood. We come from a very closed area urban, and suddenly in this environment where we could go out cycling on the mountain. We also had the River. It was beautiful. I loved the interior and open spaces. My father worked in a bank and moved / on the transfer of two or three years. My mother is everyone around her children and home, so you see, I took a very sheltered childhood with little or no contact with the outside world so to speak out. My father had an Instamatic camera that fascinated me, but I was forbidden to get my hands on it, its funny but somewhere my interest in photography that are currently banned me touch that camera. My dad I intended to be a Doctor, Engineer or IAS officer.
Q: It is classified …
Rajiv Jain: I went to the University of Lucknow in Lucknow, the state of Uttar Pradesh and was lucky to go to the Academy of Dramatic Art Bhartendu (Bhartendu Natya Academy / Bhartendu Natya Akademi), Lucknow. I specialized in the third Art with a major phase in stage lighting, with the intention of becoming a lighting designer.
QUESTION: Are you going to follow his father's footsteps?
Rajiv Jain: I do not think I never saw myself on the bench. In fact, the bug bit me to make movies when I was about 10 or 11yrs old. A film Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari called was being filmed in my neighborhood in Lucknow. I saw the trucks go down the street, and then slipped around the house where they were filming. I saw the setting up lights and cameras. I was in complete awe.
QUESTION: Were there other influences in your family?
Rajiv Jain: My mother is a person religious. I had often seen his prayer, I do not need to develop so that all those prayers went up. Our careers and our future was my mother is the greatest concern. I still remember that moment like it was yesterday, I was talking to the mother when she opened the dinner dishes and went to ask her what she wanted do with my life after getting my diploma from the school of theater, at that precise moment I had a piece of 35 mm film still in his hand "I like to do something with this "I said watching the movie. Its been a long way since then, but my mom accompanied me in these formative years and guided me every step of the way. I had eager to join the Film and Television Institute of India, but failed to qualify for the entrance examination, however moving from still photography to theater and then film seemed a very natural progression.
QUESTION: Are you interested in films in those days?
Rajiv Jain: Insurance Now! like any other child my age the film world fascinated me was not the case of the star being beaten all aspects of the film that interested me, so it was a spontaneous response as when one of my favorite all-time faculty (Guptaji) asked me what I wanted to be in life? "I want to make a career for me in the film world I want to create the magic behind the screen. "So yes, my love for cinema goes back a long way. I grew up watching Hollywood movies and India. I was not drawn to foreign films. U.S. films were the ones I liked to watch. No more than most children, but I did see the great successes of the time. My dad took me to see Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, The Longest Day during the 1970s. He loved the historical dramas large. I became a movie buff during the 1980s, while I went to Drama School in Lucknow. Some of my bohemian friends and I step to finding a popular and classical music and dance theater, professional theater company, amateur photography club and underground film called Lucknow Film Society. Showed classic films of the new wave. They were usually 16 mm images projected on a wall. That's where I discovered the world of cinema. I remember seeing Metropolis and Citizen Kane, and movies Bergman, Fellini, Truffant, Welles, Cocteau and Brahkage Stan. That was during my high school and early college years. I started reading about films and directors and started clicking pictures. I saw a movie that changed my life at that moment was a movie called Goddard contempt Raoul Coutard shot. It was a movie Cinemascope, which was very similar to what was done in still photography, but of course, twenty years before that. Widely used primary colors. It was a movie to put much emphasis on the composition and had shots wide and long tracking shots with two tiny people walking against a red wall. That was the first time I did the connection in my mind that perhaps the film in my career was the head. I was beginning to feel limited by the still photography. It was the first time recognized the potential of cinema where you can by a narrative story told in a visual way.
QUESTION: Were there particular films that made an impression on you?
Rajiv Jain: Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Rule du jeu, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, History of Tokyo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dawn, The Battleship Potemkin, 8-1/2, Singing in the Rain, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, Bicycle Thief, Raging Bull, Vertigo, Rashomon, Seven Samurai.
QUESTION: How is your background?
Rajiv Jain: My first encounter with the physics of light came by accident. One day, while cleaning the brushes in a dark garage, the light falls through a crack image projected on the wall of the room turning into a giant pinhole camera. My first contact with the film was a webcam darkroom process the size of my apartment. It just happened that one of the jija Surendra ji (universal-law) was a very avid photographer who always 35 mm had his Nikon camera hung around his neck. I have been interested in photography and encouraged me to go to Kanpur, with him taking pictures of a student demonstration in 1980 s. That was my first experience with a camera where I had the opportunity to express myself by taking photographs. I began to study photography manuals, trying to learn about composition. I watched the art photographers use the foreground color and light and shadows. That fueled my desire to learn more and more. I had a job on time completely in a dark room and goes to a photography studio at night and take pictures on weekends. That was not to satisfy my thirst to learn more about photography. After completing my education in Lucknow in 1985 I moved to Mumbai / Bombay and started as a runner / trainee / apprentice in a series of low budget features and industrial.
QUESTION: I thought at the time of his life he wanted to enter the narrative filmmaking?
Rajiv Jain: I must admit I never thought it was a great opportunity for me to work in Bombay. It was very hard for the north Indians to gain a foothold in Bombay .. The only other place they were doing films at that time was in Calcutta and Madras. I decided to learn English, with the concept that could go there and give it a try. Of course, with all work I was doing, I never got into any real sequence of experience, and I'm partially dyslexic, so it was difficult to learn a new language.
QUESTION: How started in business? What did you do?
Rajiv Jain: I started as a messenger, learner, trainee, spark, grip, key grip, charger, the best boy, focus puller and work my way up gaffer (Indian term assistant chief DOP).
Q: How long have you worked as assistant?
Rajiv Jain: Oh, about 7-8 years.
QUESTION: What did you do when you completed assistant job?
Rajiv Jain: I Bombay worked on documentaries, industrial and commercial films as camera assistant and Gaffer. They were all small projects. I worked with a couple of cameramen they were shooting at the local level. It was mostly 16 mm and a little more than 35 mm, mainly to make some money. While doing that I was still shooting film short documentaries on everything a few. He was always working on my craft and building my reel, with the idea that someday he would shoot characteristics. When I left the ship for assistance, I faked a little, with the help a bit and was running industrial films, documentaries, commercials and other small jobs. I shot movies sales for medical companies promote new products and techniques, small religious dramas for a company T-Series, which distributed them to the temples, and some variety shows. I have a lot of jobs through people I knew in my assistance for days. It is very important to make friends because they are who will want to bring people along who know when they get a job. We had our own rotating group of guys who did all the different jobs depending on who was shooting and that gaffing.
Q: When did you decide to concentrate on photography?
Rajiv Jain: Immediately. I thought the process of directing was too long, and I liked being a director of photography. During my second year at drama school in 1985, I worked for three or four months for a television station Lucknow. My job was to select what was good enough to offset the program. It was a great practice. He also learned the job as second assistant cameraman and first in Bombay in Ashok Mehta, Binod Pradhan and KKMahajan
QUESTION: What was the deciding factor in making that decision?
Rajiv Jain: I do not want to look back someday and regret that I did not try. I did not want 80 years of age I wondered if I could have succeeded. If not, might have heard of Lucknow gave it my best shot. So, I came to Bombay in the middle of a fuel crisis – only auto rickshaw ride was a great challenge. I turned in several interviews DOP s because they were much more accessible than great movie operations. There was no way I could get in the door of any such places. After three months, money was running out. I was walking down a sort of a store in Mumbai on Saturday, and I could see through an open door were building sets. I remember thinking, would not be working on a weekend unless they were behind. So, I went, found the foreman and told him was a carpenter. He asked me if I had any expertise set-building? I lied and said yes. It was only half a lie, because I had built many sets for plays in school plays. The only similarity is that both are made of wood. They were building sets for television commercials.
Q: Did working as a gaffer in film help?
First in India means Uncle assistant chief of dictatorship of the proletariat. We have gaffer tradition. I came to think that working as a cinematographer. That would bring a new technique or a new type of light to the attention of photography I was working, suggesting that as something that would help tell the story of a better way. I think I learned more watching other directors work than anything else. One of the few ways to really learn photography is another filmmaker. This is how I believe that knowledge is transmitted. You end up picking up small pearls of wisdom on the road. The most important things I learned watching other directors at work are not technical, but how to make all comfortable for the director and actors, and how to make a creative environment rather than a technical environment.
QUESTION: How did you get into the T-Series music videos?
Rajiv Jain: I tried to work as a freelancer for a while but it was hard to enter the union. There was a company called Super Cassettes Studios that was run by the late Gulshan Kumar in Bombay. They had a place of publication and then opened a center for online editing. They were hiring a lot of people at that time and I had some experience camera operator and the person crew, so I took to be a study on all types of maintenance. I also learned to handle the tape machines. When I got there, it was a very small place in time, so I learned all sorts of things. I had already made two videos at that point. "I was working on the study on trade and it would bring in the union lighting cameramen, and I sometimes work as an operator for them. I kind of lighting technician for them, from what I've learned more in this study in the space of a year and a half years than any other. It was a very intense training, and brought in high-quality video quality recording to an inch. We used the Sony camera and it was a good camera. I still think it is better than the cameras that are out there now but we were always trying to make a film look out of it. We played with filtration and black levels and all types of lighting to see how we could get it to look like a movie.
QUESTION: That sounds like it was a great experience for you?
Rajiv Jain: Yes, I have to throw a lot and be quite creative with the camera in that video. You also have to be in the postproduction process. It was a very exciting editing process, and then we some kind of effects in the study, so I have to shoot. This was a real good break for me and then the project director introduced me much more after that. I started making documentaries. I went on tour with them and toured three times. I made a documentary in New Delhi on recording music videos, we recorded on video, all documentaries that we recorded on video, but it really gave me the opportunity to play with the image and the lens and moving the camera. It was great!
QUESTION: What was your first feature?
Rajiv Jain: My first feature as DOP was independent of the Army (1994) starring Sharukh Khan, Sridevi and Carnero Shetty shown. Color was anamorphic. I changed the contrast with the lighting to eliminate all shades of gray. That was my signature, blacks and pure whites, no gray. Late Mukul S Anand visited the set while filming, and then worked with him on domestic production in their ads MAD Films (1994).
QUESTION: What to look for when you're reading a script? Is the story, the director, a combination or something else?
Rajiv Jain: Generally, is history, but there are some people who are so talented and good to work with that I am always willing to say yes, I'm going to go anywhere. I think that above all is the story I have to grasp. I do not necessarily think of it visually at the time … Ideally a film I'd love to see. I am also looking for something different from what I've done before. Longing variety. It is a combination of things. At first, I thought the script was the most important thing, but I have found scripts are changing constantly. Not so much about the shots you do. Film is about the environment you create. A film is a reflection of a projected series of two-dimensional images on a white screen. Is static flashes of light projected through a lens that somehow stimulates the brains of people in the audience and create a three dimensional world moving. When you agree to make a film, you are making a moral commitment – it is an obligation we owe to the director and the audience. There must be a visual continuity that makes the audience feel they have witnessed a slice of life. I tend to be more interested in the concept of a movie. I ask the director to tell I want to do with the movie. There was a movie called Army. The movie is two hours long, and is the only movie I've worked where only two pages modified during filming. It's the best script in an Indian film which I worked. There are not many film directors with experience in India because many of them are from TV. I tried to train myself to understand what is necessary to make a film for the cinema.
QUESTION: What were some of low-budget films other have worked?
Rajiv Jain: I'm not saying that Kabhi Kabhi Pyar Mein earlier. The first thing I did outside of my being an independent was a small film called Rasta who was shot in 15 days in Jaisalmer and never published. It was my first full account of the experience. I made other films after that. Those films played an important role in putting things together in later films because you learn from your mistakes. You learn that there is no time like in a movie. Not no turning back. You need to plan and persevere through difficult times in a movie. The lower budget and independent films, which are times difficult all the time. No shooting easy, because trading powers are taking down over his shoulders. The main thing I learned doing these movies is that you have to answer to yourself over time. You have to pace yourself and stay true to that effect. When Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi did (in 1998) had a clear idea of the objective and told us how to shape the look, but I did not know he worked until he was projected. I was terrified to watch the daily and do not know if I was on the right track. When I saw the first demo, which was probably my most terrifying and exciting experience.
QUESTION: His recent work includes two features. The last Badhaai Ho Badhaai was. Describe your experience filming a comedy.
Rajiv Jain: Comedy can be a tragedy. I think the hardest part is that if we throw everything flat is only going to look like a flat comedy. The comedy is brilliant, but still want to see the texture in the systems. In the comedy, I think many times because it plays static of comedy, this is not the joke. If the joke is going under, people should be listening. If you move the camera to tell the joke, it is distracting. Now if you move the camera to a reaction in the image itself is a different thing. I believe that comedy is harder to light fiction. There are different levels of comedy and I see photographically different level.
QUESTION: How did you started shooting commercials?
Rajiv Jain: While still was helping in camera, the producer called me and said the agency wanted to shoot their next commercial. I had never shot 35 mm, which surprised me. I still remember the board with my name on it. That was a magical moment. The commercial went well, and leading to other malls, mostly in India. Shooting commercial I learned to work with many different people, jumping from one project to another in many different ways and places. I think I've applied much of what I learned from shot to shot ads duties. It's not something conscious. I was just in very different situations the solution of the same types of problems.
QUESTION: Who were some of the filmmakers who worked on the ads?
Rajiv Jain: I have worked with KK Mahajan, Binod Pradhan, Vikas Sivaraman and then Ashok Mehta.
QUESTION: Did you move back and forth between the ads and function?
Rajiv Jain: I made a movie in almost three years. The rest of my time was on ads. Commercial work is very interesting because it can treat a large number of tools first. In India now, the ads much with aesthetics and it is like still photography, and learn to create different worlds and are eager for such non-realist worlds. I learned to take risks, because if you want something special you have to deal, and sometimes succeed and sometimes not, but then that is an integral part of the learning process.
QUESTION: Have the affected commercial how to burn movies?
Rajiv Jain: They give you a firm understanding of the possibilities of what you can achieve with photography. You get a lot of experience in creation looks different in different forms that can be applied to a film. The more takes, the more you learn. Occasionally, you will discover something new that you can build.
Q: Do you have a particular style that makes his work recognizable?
Rajiv Jain: I think everyone has their style, but I would like someone to go in a cinema and say 'Oh, Rajiv Jain shot because that's his style. "I would like to say," Oh, who shot that? I think you have to be more versatile in their eyes these days. Each film is different, so like to think that you can put something different in each film as opposed to creating a look repetitive.
QUESTION: How many features, commercials, music videos have you shot?
Rajiv Jain: 6 features nearly 1032 commercial 43 150 music videos and documentaries, corporate and industrial videos.
QUESTION: Have all your projects been restricted to India and has overseas launch right?
Rajiv Jain: I shot in Austria, France, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Uganda, United Arab Emirates And United Kingdom.
QUESTION: How do you finally get in the Society of Cinematographers Indian filmmaker and western India s Association?
JAIN Rajiv: You may apply to join the Association. I had experience in commercials and movies as an assistant, and as director of photography in five films. I had much better documentation as an assistant to get in the union. That was a charger for KKMahajan five features and two television series, and I was an assistant on two features Binod Pradhan and approx. 300 ads and Ashok Mehta on two features and approx. 100 ads. I took the focus of a year until I moved the assistant chief operator & b of the camera.
QUESTION: Is the film a talent born with an ability to learn, or both?
Rajiv Jain: I think you have to be born with the ability to visualize. As a child, I spent much time looking out the window at school when I should have been looking at the books. I scolded so many times. I grew up and yet still do. I still fantasize, more than you think an ordinary person would dare to do. Outside of such a dream, ends with images that have a kind of reality itself. The films have influenced the way of making love, what we wear, how eat, how we walk, how we speak, and how we act in everyday life. You must be able to walk across the bridge to this imaginary world and be able to walk backwards. One of the tricks is that you need to know how to handle light. You must have a feel for the different types of light. Where do you get that knowledge? You have to know film as the palm of your hand. That is a skill among others you have to learn. Even as a child, I responded to the light emotionally. It is always a part of me. The film grabbed me at a young age and gave me a voice that had in any other part of my life. I have the luck to have found an outlet for that. Ca not imagine doing anything else.
QUESTION: Finally did you ever get used to the fact that you're living your dream?
Rajiv Jain: The night before I shot my first commercial Late Mukul S Anand, I have only two hours of sleep and panic I had a dream that our whole inner hall had been built less than half of scale was a kind of taste. I could not walk on it the film, much less in it. There was no place for the lights or the actors. In my dream, I kept asking, 'How We're shooting in this space "After 600 ads and five films later, I still do not sleep much the night before the first day of shooting. The truth is that I I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to make a living by using shapes, colors, contrast and movement to bring history to life. I love the collaboration with the director, production designer and the actors and passive collaboration with the composer, editor and writer. When I hear a carefully crafted scores and images I've photographed are joined on the screen that brings tears to my eyes. It's really amazing how music can improve my work. I have spoken with the composers of this, and say it is the same for them when they hear music and see how the picture with him. We have almost no contact during the filming of the movie, but are partners key to the emotions that give life to the screen.
QUESTION: Do you feel a sense of responsibility, since many people will be influenced by films do?
Rajiv Jain: I feel a responsibility towards the public and for a business that I have loved all my life. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I can work in Bollywood in the tradition of the great filmmakers who were here before us. The films have made a difference in our lives, and our responsibility to give something in return.
About the Author
Rajiv Jain ICS WICA is an Indian Cinematographer / Director of Photography based in Dubai ( UAE ), Nairobi ( Kenya ) and Mumbai ( India ). He brings years of professional films and video experience to every production. As Director of Photography he specializes in shooting television commercials and feature films in the 35mm motion picture film format. His body of work as DP covers 7 full length feature films, 5 Short Films, 1032 commercials, 6 TV Series, 43 music videos, 105 documentaries & infomercials. As a DOP and Camera Operator, Rajeev has a wealth of experience with specialty camera rigs, lens systems SFX techniques, Tyler helicopter mounts, cranes & jibs, probe and swing shift lens systems, blue/green screen, white limbo and HDTV. His freelance work has taken him to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. A graduate from the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts ( Bhartendu Natya Academy ), Rajeev Jain brings energy, creativity and professionalism to every production.
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