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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
Indranil Chakraborty
KOLKATA

It is a world that has changed beyond recognition. The world of digital technology has turned upside down the post-production scenario in the making of cinema, video, animation and ad films.

In sound-recording and mixing, digital audio workstation or software such as Sound Forge and SAWpro have taken over. The slicers to cut and join the shots in the editing studios have vanished. Avid MC workstations and PC-based software like FCP from Apple are doing the editing job.

Non-linear digital editing, flexibility to cut and join any part of a shot with ease; and ability to complete the job in less time and money has democratised the whole visual communication medium. Suddenly, a band of new independent film-makers, who are otherwise out of the expensive analogue format-based film-making, are busy producing short films, music videos and jingles for Channel V or MTV kind of music channels.

Have a PC or a macintosh machine or even a notebook, load an editing software, have some learning from a neighbourhood multimedia training company, and an editor is born.

Forget years of hardwork in a studio where editing was an expensive, trial and error and time consuming job. Digital technology is creating new possibilities and extension of boundaries of creation.

Said Mr Nilotpal Majumdar, assistant professor-editing, Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI), “The new set of digital technology through minimisation of workload has created a conducive working environment. New avenues have opened up in areas like animation, music video and multimedia. The new communication technology has created a user-friendly environment where software plus aesthetics is the new genre.”

For Mr Indranil Roychoudhury, a 1995 diploma holder from Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, who grew with the changes in the editing and sound recording studios, digitisation has opened up new avenues of communication.

“Look at the way post-production has changed the ad film world and the smart and cheeky music videos. With the help of various colour correction and compositing software like Combustion and Flame, a director can produce any kind of special effects which was unthinkable a few years ago,” said Mr Roychoudhury.

In sound, the changes brought by the digital technology are path breaking. Take the case of dubbing which is an important post-production work for many television family soaps. A sound software can stretch or shrink the dubbing time to match the lip movements.

Among the many applications of a sound software, one could turn a non-melodious voice into a perfect melody in sync with the track requirement. Sound editing has become non-linear. It means that a creative sound recordist could make endless changes in the sound track. There is nothing called final mixing.

At the end of final recording, if there’s a need to alter a section of the sound track to satisfy aesthetic needs, a sound software can do it without throwing away the existing editing track. The software just has to plug in the changes to the original mixing.

Mr Arijit Paul, a sound recordist from SRFTI, said that digital technology had shrunk the time required to produce rich quality sound on multiple tracks on a PC or a workstation.

Said Mr Paul: “Few years ago, sound recording and mixing were limited to a few tracks. With two hands, it is impossible for a sound recordist to handle many sound sources. Now there is no limitation of tracks.

It is not that the earlier magnetic tracks did not create quality sound, but the new technology has made the process of recording simpler.”

The essence of the whole change that created revolution in the post-production scenario is less time and resource requirement, compared to the analogue past. Digital revolution has made this possible.

Said Mr Indranil Roychoudhury, “It was impossible till a few years ago for so many channels to produce so many television programmes in such a short time. Digitisation has made this possible.

For a producer or a director, the job has become very easy in terms money, resources and time required to produce a programme. One simply can’t compare with the analogue post-production requirements.”

But, when will this revolution touch the pre-production part, most importantly, the camera? Most of the shoot is still done in analogue 35 mm cameras or betacam video. Visual technologists, meanwhile, opine that in the next few years or so, visuals would be recorded in hard disks and magnetic tapes may vanish.

Said Mr Nilotpal Majumdar: “In terms of resolution, digital cameras have still a long way to go. In a fast changing scenario, it may not be long enough, when a shot taken and recorded in a digital camera will be at par with films. Till then, films will be digitised for post-production work.”