Feels nice to write in my blog after a year.
Yesterday, I had an opportunity to attend an event "Talk and Walk Inside Studio" organised by Namma Arcot Road a recent set up of the Arcot Road neighbourhood. A public talk by the Director of the L.V. Prasad & T.V. Academy, Sri K. Hariharan, on the studio's heritage and walk through the Studio were the agenda. It was open to all.
As I have a passion for videography/docu films I rushed to the venue, a little late due to the distance from my place, rainy weather/festival Saturday.
It was a wonderful experience. Sri Hariharan took us to the hall with high ceiling and different lights fitted to it. From there to the settings like the bar, office room, kitchen, bed room etc and finally to the camera room with projector equipment and the erstwhile 70mm camera. In the meantime we were provided with snacks. Sri Hariharan gave us information about film projector and the 70mm camera of yesteryear.
We then assembled in his class room. We were around 50 in number. Sri Hariharan introduced Sri Sivaraman, the General Manager of Prasad studio for 40 years now. Sri Sivaraman, very passionate about the neighbourhood and also the studio, gave some interesting anecdotes. He could recall the visits of VIPs/Celebrities.
The area beyond Vadapalani Bus Stand was like a village with paddy fields when the studio was
started. There were few more studios, like Vasu Studio, Sharada Studio etc. Beyond Vadapalani the only mode of transport was Jatka vandi. There was only one mess (Subbiah mess) nearby serving as outdoor catering, which provided full lunch for 90 paise.
VIPs like Raj Kapoor, Mrinal Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, Jitendra etc., have visited the Studio.
Mrinal sen once insisted to go to a local South Indian Hotel instead of Star hotel near Mount Road and enjoyed food in a dingy small eatery in that area.
The Vijaya Vauhini Studio was one of the biggest in Asia with 14 floors. But later some floors were closed and Vijaya Hospital was established. The multi speciality concept was first introduced in Vijaya Hospital. The other studios gave way to godowns and multistory complexes.
Once a muddy village Arunachalam Road now has become vibrant where the L.V. Prasad studio is housed.
Sri Sivaraman ended with a proud note about the neighbourhood.
Be it Sri L.V. Prasad, Sri Nagi Reddy or Sri A.V. Meyyappan, they produced national cinema rather than mere Tamil cinemas, exclaimed Sri Hariharan. RajKapoor, Mehboob Khan and other North Indians produced regional cinemas only, whereas we could give in all languages like Tamil,Telugu and Hindi at a time. Great actors like NTR, Ranga Rao, Prem Nazeer and MGR have all lived in Madras as contemporaries.
About L.V. Prasad, he said, the great human being wanted to plough back his entire wealth into cinema, as he earned everything through cinema. He could provide facilities at Hyderabad, Bangalore and Trivandrum when it was requested. His life's mission was to provide a school for film studies in his studios for those who have interest in film making, as he never had formal education in this line. The result, we see today the L.V. Prasad Film & T.V. Academy, established by his son Sri. Ramesh Prasad, for which aptly Sri. Hariharan is the Director who, as all of us know, is an award winning film maker.
Photo 1: Sri. Hariharan with audience in one of the setting rooms inside the studio.
Photo 2: Sri.Hariharan with 70mm film role.
As I had some problem in uploading 2 video clippings in this page itself, am giving the YouTube URL for the same.
The first one is the demonstration by Sri. Hariharan on Film Projector and the second on the 70mm Camera of yesteryear ( the last film probably was 'Ek duje Keliye')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Iib7xdgTo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Iib7xdgTo
