The curious case of Kannada movie Dollu bagging the 68th National Film Award for a sync sound movie whereas not being one

After the 68th National Film Awards had been introduced on Friday, awarding Dollu two awards: the Best Kannada Film and “Location Sound Recordist (for sync sound films only)”, Oscar-winning sound mixer and the winner of Best Audiography on the 67th National Awards, Resul Pookutty, discovered himself in the midst of a row after he put out a tweet expressing his shock {that a} dubbed movie gained for sync sound. The reality was confirmed by the movie’s sound designer Nithin Lukose. Pookutty, who has been a part of many authorities committees up to now, says, he’s being “misrepresented in the media, and is being projected as anti-government, which is grossly wrong”.

Lukose tweeted “I pity the judgement of the jury who couldn’t differentiate between a dub and a sync sound film”. He says, “Sync sound or location sound mixing means we record the dialogues and the sounds from the location when the shooting is happening, along with the camera. The camera will roll and the sound will parallelly roll on a sound-recording machine. So, there will be a sound team on location to capture sync sound. But in this film, that wasn’t done. I wanted sync sound but they didn’t do it because of budget and other issues. They have dubbed the film in a Bengaluru studio. But when the National Film Award came, the film got awarded in sync sound category, that is location sound mixing category, which was not at all done for the film.”

I don’t know what occurred behind the curtains of the National Award choices and it’s procedures, But I pity the judgement of the jury who couldn’t differentiate between a dub and a sync sound movie, claims to be the consultants within the state of affairs! @official_dff https://t.co/hmPBT43BhW

— Nithin Lukose (@nithin_lukose) July 22, 2022

Jobin Jayan, who has been conferred the stated award, is a part of the sound crew and design course of, whom Lukose had requested to do “effects recording” for the movie. He recorded the band/performers, with their musical devices, in motion, for a day. Lukose says, “If the jury claims to be sound experts, they should have been able to tell the difference. This cannot happen at the level of National Film Awards, this isn’t any small awards with no credibility, it has national credibility, and thus, greater responsibility. That is my concern, hence, I tweeted about it. This is, perhaps, the first time something like this is happening in the history of the National Film Awards, and I don’t know how to go about it. The DFF (Directorate of Film Festivals, which confers National Film Award) will have to respond, take some action.” The DFF, established in 1973, was among the many 4 movie items that had been merged into the PSU NFDC (National Film Development Corporation) in April.

“I’ve done additional recording, but that cannot be called sync sound,” says Dollu’s location sound recordist Jobin Jayan, the winner.

“The jury can’t make such a weird decision. They must have understood our difficulty and hard work in recreating the music. It must be a clerical error; even we are not aware why that additional bit in brackets was added. It’s not there for any other film/category among the winners,” says Pavan Wadeyar, the movie’s producer, who’s a business Kannada director, having made movies with Yash and the late Puneeth Rajkumar.

Wadeyar’s first manufacturing, Dollu, a 2020 movie, is director Sagar Puranik’s debut function movie. This win is Puranik’s second outing on the National Film Awards. He had earlier gained the Special Mention (non-feature movie) on the 66th National Film Awards in 2019, for his brief movie Mahaan Hutatma (2018), on the Indian Army and Bhagat Singh. Shot in between the 2 lockdowns, Dollu trains the lens on the dollu kunitha folks drum dance and speaks about how urbanisation is affecting indigenous folks artwork kinds.

In the appliance type they submitted, the filmmakers say, the three Audiographer (s) class that they stuffed in, stated: Location Sound Recordist (Jobin Jayan), Sound Designer (Nithin Lukose), Re-recordist of the Final Mixed Track (Krishnanunni NR). “When we submitted the film, the award category mentioned in the application said location recordist, it did not have any brackets or mention of ‘sync sound films only’. That’s a new addition which we got to know when the awards were announced. If the brackets were in the application, I would have obviously never signed up for it, it would have been ethically and morally wrong on my part. The real problem is the descriptor in the brackets. Had that not been there, then the award is legit and justified,” says Puranik, whose pleasure has been stubbed by the scenario. “It’s neither their (jury’s) nor our mistake. I feel there’s been a clerical error. We never claimed the film to be sync sound nor applied in that format/category,” provides Wadeyar, who hopes to launch the movie in theatres in August.

“The sound team has done an excellent job, Krishnanunni’s final mix is great. I may have been wrong in taking that decision, but at the time, I didn’t want to create additional problems in post-production. What happens on location is that eight-10 people beat the drums in a synchronised manner in a vast, open space, and there are a lot of echoes, ambient noise. If we had gone for sync sound, there would have been sound overlap with the next beat. While we have also recorded live, have pilot tracks, I wanted perfection and crisp, clear sound, which we couldn’t get in a dubbing or recording studio, we tried and failed,” says Puranik. Budget was misplaced, the director and producer fell out for a bit. After some persuasion, “Jobin flew in with his sync equipment, and the audio of the four-five performances was re-recorded, beat to beat, frame to frame” in a faraway place, on the outskirts of Bengaluru, which value “around Rs 15-20 lakh more,” says Wadeyar.

Puranik is in talks with the National Film Awards committee; the director, producer and sound designer are awaiting communication.