Award winning Sound Engineer T. Uday kumar on Vivegam, films he aspires to be a part of, evolution in audiography and more

T. Udayakumar became a well-known name the moment his name featured in the list of Tamil Nadu State award winners for films in 2009. The technician who debuted with Daas (uncredited) and Em Magan (official) and has been a part of over 200 plus films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi ever since, opens up about the latest sensation Vivegam, films that he hopes to work on, challenges and advancements in his field and much more :

The buzz around Vivegam is increasing day by day. How does it feel to be a part of such a big film?

Vivegam is a high-budget action packed movie and has been extremely challeging for me work-wise. We got done with the movie-mix only yesterday and I've used certain sounds like the chopper sound for the first time. It feels complimentary to be a part of such a huge project.

After watching Vivegam's trailer, we felt that the T-shirt tearing sound really stood out. Any moment from the film that you feel will make the audience take notice?

Ajith Sir's opening sequence in the film has a chopper sequence, which have the loudest sounds plus dialogues. We have worked meticulously to make it audible. The bike race sequence is another rarity in Tamil films which I think the audience will like. Also there is a portion of action block with a group of foreigners in it. That could go well noticed in the film.

The concept of Sound Engineering became popular only after Resul Pookutty won an Oscar in that field. Similarly, do you think people have started recignizing you better after the state award for Peranmai?

Definitely. What an Oscar did to familiarize the term Sound Engineering, a state award has done for the growing importance for it. Many new and upcoming directors are now focussed equally on the sound aspect for their films as well, which wasn't the case earlier.

What kind of films do you aspire to be a part of?

I'd like to do music-oriented films like Devdas (Hindi) where the scope of work for an audiographer is more when compared to other films. Also I just got done with the teaser of Tik Tik Tik which was a new challege to me.

Speaking about Tik Tik Tik, it is said to be India's first space thriller. How was it working on the film?

I've just worked on the teaser so far. In our industry, we've never had a space film before. So the biggest challege was to keep the sounds, familiar to the audience's level and at the same time handle such a unique concept. I really think the film has a lot to offer technically.

Has the evolution of technology affected the authenticity of sounds?

When I started off my career in early 2000s, I only has 8 tracks in my database. Now I work with infinity tracks. In Vivegam alone, we have used close to 1000 tracks in sounds. So evolution of technology has definitely given us a lot and I do not think it has affected the authenticity.

But yes, I feel it has affected the work discipline. Previously during dubbing and re-recording, pin-drop silence was maintained so as not to affect the work of a sound engineer. Now-a-days, people don't mind talking in the background as they feel it could be re-done in another take.

How does the future look for Sound -Engineering say 5 to 10 years from now?

See up until the 60s, sync-sound, the practise of live-recording felt more advantageous as recreating the emotions and reactions in front of a mike was not required.

Then with time came colour cameras, more outdoor locations and multi-lingual artistes for whom techonological advancement like dubbing became a vital tool. And for character artistes, dubbing today has become a means of making-up, in case they have not performed well during a shot.

And as I mentioned before the technological advancements has helped us produce a lot of sounds which we never had references of till a few years ago. So sound engineering is here to stay.

Apart from Vivegam, what are your future projects?

There is Madurai Veeran, Kodi Veeran (Sasi Kumar), Neruppu Da (Vikram Prabu), Sema Bodha Aagathey (Atharvaa) and Nenjil Thunivirundhaal (Sundeep Kishan, Vikranth) apart from the Telugu films I'm working on.

Udaykumar has worked in notable films like Visaranai, Aadukalam, Polladhavan, Anjathey, Vedhalam among many more. Movie Crow wishes him all the best for Vivegam and hopes to see him be a part of many more interesting projects in the future.