Mind-reading, translation and the ability to ‘feel the film’ are crucial skills for a cinematographer, says Ayananka Bose who is shooting Salman Khan’s next
Anand Holla (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 8, 2018)

Generic lounge music plays like a dull hymn at the Versova coffee shop where we are to meet cinematographer Ayananka Bose. The lensman saunters in, wearing a printed blue shirt thrown over a pair of denims, his hand clasping a cellphone fastened to a flickering power bank. Bose has just returned from Abu Dhabi, having blazed through a month-long shoot of the Salman Khan-led multi-starrer, Race 3. “We wrapped up the shoot, spanning Mumbai, Bangkok and Abu Dhabi, in just 72 days. Now, only five days of shoot remain (sic),” says Bose, also credited for big-ticket films such as Dostana, Kites, I Hate Luv Storys, Force, Student Of The Year, Kick, and Judwaa 2.

In a career spanning 12 years, the 38-year-old has acquired a reputation in the industry for being a particularly quick worker. Bose attributes his speed to his ability to see ‘fully-formed images’ in his head. “Since I can readily translate images, even as the director talks to me, I visualise it in my head. Fortunately for me, those images are usually in sync with what the director wants to convey. And then, I already know where I want my lights to be placed,” he explains.

Cinematography, says Bose, boils down to common sense. “It’s about how you solve the problem in the fastest way possible.” Apart from top DOPs (directors of photography) such as Janusz Kaminski, Emmanuel Lubezki, and Roger Deakins, Bose is heavily influenced by legendary American photographer Ansel Adams’ ‘zone system’ of capturing images, where one controls every level of light in the frame to one’s advantage. Borrowing from Adams’ mantra, Bose knows just “where to place the highlights and where to send the shadows”.

The guiding principle of Bose’s work though is to “mind-read the director and bring his vision to life”. How different is it then for him to shoot a period drama Umrao Jaan (2006) from the frenzied excesses of Race 3? Apparently, none at all. “The basic definition of a cinematographer is one who translates the images envisaged by the director. The moment you are good at that, it won’t matter what you are translating,” says Bose.

He describes the director-cinematographer equation with a simplistic yet apt analogy: “A good marriage is one where both husband and wife take care of each other. It’s exactly the same on a film set.” Clearly, Bose believes in the sanctity of this blessed union.

Not one to play Chess with his career choices, Bose reasons that his seemingly wide-ranging filmography is merely accidental. “I don’t go by scripts, I only go by dates,” he deadpans. “In fact, I have never read the script of any film I have done. More importantly, I have never refused any work. The only downside of forever saying ‘Yes’ is not getting enough time for family.”

Understandably then, crafting a cinematic legacy has never excited Bose. “I don’t harbour big ambitions. I don’t judge scripts, directors, or films. My struggle has partly shaped my attitude towards work. My question remains — who am I to judge?” When Bose was starting out, the struggle was intense. For most of the two years leading up to that life-changing day when he walked into J P Dutta’s office, he spent his days in near penury. “I was totally jobless. I couldn’t afford more than one meal a day. I could barely pay the Rs 3,000 rent for my one-room accommodation in Kandivali,” Bose says of the days when he frequented offices of producers, hoping to secure a meeting to pitch his skills.

His turning point came in 2005 when he met Dutta, who was looking for DOPs to shoot his magnum opus, Umrao Jaan. “As he listed the names he had in mind, I felt like an idiot. Then, he asked me just one question — ‘How will you shoot this film?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I go to a set, the location speaks to me, and I place the camera based on the feel of what the director tells me’.” It was only months after Bose began shooting the film when he gathered the courage to ask Dutta why he was chosen for the job. “He said, ‘Every cinematographer told me how they want to shoot the film; you were the only one who said you want to feel the film’,” says Bose who never looked back.

His most memorable shooting anecdote, he shares, was requesting Amitabh Bachchan to be elevated while shooting the title track of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom in London’s Waterloo Station. The idea was “to enhance the background”. “Amitabh sir asked me — ‘Are you serious?’” says Bose, laughing. “He said, ‘This is the first time that somebody has asked me to stand on a stool; it’s always been the other way around’.”