‘I have a simple motto. It is to learn something new every day’

We all remember how brilliant a work Kahaani 2 was. Behind the lens that captured the narrative was Bollywood’s emerging cinematographer Tapan Basu, who has worked on the upcoming film Romeo Akbar Walter (RAW), starring John Abraham, that is slated to release on April 5. We talk to Basu about the film, his life and more...

What was your experience working on the film RAW?
RAW is extremely close to me, maybe because as a kid I wanted to either be in the army or the secret service. I heard the script long before I did Kahani 2 and seeing it come alive on screen has been very emotional and exciting. Being the DOP (Director of photography), this movie gave me the opportunity to create a certain look and feel as the movie is set in the 70s and we wanted a certain texture and colour for different parts of the film based on the locations. It was a collaborative process with the director and production designer. Also, Robbie, as director, gives a lot of freedom and that really helps an artist, be it for the actors or technical crew.

Did you find any particular aspect of the film challenging?
We had done intensive preparation for this film. The challenge was to keep the look consistent for certain places as we had shot in over 14 cities and 114 locations. For example the chase which you see in the film is shot in three different cities and also in the reverse order as we were travelling from one city to another. The end was shot first, then middle in some other city later and the beginning later in some other city.

Keeping track of the continuity especially in outdoor and matching it with all other cities was definitely challenging. The whole film has a certain mood linked with India, Pakistan, POK, Bangladesh and Nepal. The fact that we shot all of this in 46 days is another aspect, but here I would like to thank my team and our collaboration with Robbie, the director, and Maddy, the production designer, was excellent along with other departments.

From advertising to working on a critically acclaimed film like Kahaani 2 and now RAW. How has the journey been? 
I have a simple motto. It is to learn something new every day. Am I becoming a better person than yesterday? And it is not always necessary to connect everything with cinematography or your work. I think with time and experience we all grow and growth is always constant but makes sure it’s positive not just for you but for your immediate surrounding and environment.

Also, there is always an internal introspection you need to keep doing. So when I look back, I will look back and see what I did in Kahani 2 and what I did in RAW, both are a different genre films. Have I done justice to the narrative and if I’ve got something new to the table for the director? Would I have shot the films differently?.
As I said that I come from an advertising background, so I keep saying this, in advertising we are shooting a scene most of the time but here you have multiple scenes. So both do not make much of a difference except you are shooting a lot more in a day and committed to a project for much longer.

Why cinematography? 
It was very organic. I took up photography in my school in St. Paul’s Darjeeling and I used to keep shooting something or the other. I could shoot a still of the woods outside and pass it off saying its somewhere else and people believed it. It started as a childish fun but later I realised how you see mundane things and you can make it interesting and appealing to people. This is what got me first into photography but I quickly moved on to cinematography. As a kid I was exposed to a lot of movies, be it Ray’s or Western Hollywood narratives and classics.

Working style
If you ask any cinematogra-pher they will say you shouldn’t have a style, its always the narrative which should dictate the style, and if cinematogra-phy is what you are talking about in the film then you have failed. It should be subtle. But if you ask me I would say it’s practically true because you will catch a certain style over the long run and I don’t think its wrong at all as long as you enhance and justify the story with your style.