The Cinematographer

In conversation with Omkar Diwekar a cinematographer and national award-winning film, Unreserved. Don't know what a cinematographer does? This is a continuing dialogue on the different folks involved in the video creation, editing, and distribution process.

[00:00:00]Naga S: [00:00:00] Thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast.

[00:00:04] Omkar: [00:00:04] Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:00:05]Naga S: [00:00:05] A good place to start would be to tell us what your passion is and how you're making it manifest.

[00:00:13]Omkar: [00:00:13] I'm a cinematographer. I work, in Bombay as a freelance cinematographer. I, Majorly love to shoot, nonfiction, the documentary films, but has documentaries. Don't provide a lot of, financial help, in India, especially I, I do, sort of like digital commercials and short films, and I do aspire to, get into fiction filmmaking as well.

[00:00:37]that is also a long-term target.

[00:00:41] Naga S: [00:00:41] Got it. So how is, so there, there are all these terms, right? Like there's a director, there's a producer, there's a cinematographer. So what, what do all these different people do? And, in that, what, what do you specifically do?

[00:00:53] Omkar: [00:00:53] Okay. So I am a cinematographer. So my department is, camera, lighting, [00:01:00] collaborating with the director, before we go on the shoot. my job is to collaborate with the director and, sort of, combine his vision with the technical, know-how that is needed because filmmaking is ultimately, it's an art, but it's a scientific art.

[00:01:16]there's a lot of, science that goes behind, how you capture the images, how you record the sound. So, it's filmmaking in itself is a collaboration of various kinds of people who are, who specialize in various different departures. So, Peter, who has a vision for that particular story? He has, he has seen the film already in his head even before, he sets foot on the stage on the, on the set.

[00:01:44] So it's the cinematographer's job to really, understand his vision, how he sees the film, and try to get it, on camera. So that's, that's predominantly the job.

[00:01:57]Naga S: [00:01:57] Got it. the shift from [00:02:00] engineering to, you know, something on the creative lens must be, must be a big one. So what, what inspired you, or what pushed you to make that shift happen?

[00:02:08]Omkar: [00:02:08] okay. So, let me go back B before, engineering to answer your question. So as a child, actually my father used to, so are you, you remember how on-duty version? every Friday and Saturday and Sunday, they would be filmed in the evening. So, so my father and he used to be home, on, on the weekends, he would, Said set me down, before the film would start and he's a huge fan.

[00:02:35] So, and every time there would be a film playing, he would sit me down like an half an hour before the film would start. And he would, you know, very, enthusiastically, he would explain, he would tell me this is going to happen in this film. This film is about that. And he's going to do this. He's going to do that.

[00:02:55] And it used to be very exciting for me because. my father is in general, a [00:03:00] very shy person. So, he was, he's very reserved kind of a person. So this was like a , rare, chance for me to, you know, have some kind of a bond with him. And that's how, this fascination for films really grew for me from my childhood , I used to watch a lot of films as a kid, when I was in my junior college, I used to bunk college and go watch films, at the theater.

[00:03:26] And, and then, when I was in engineering college, what happened actually was like, unfortunately, in the first year of my engineering college, I had an accident and, my leg was like burned