Ace sound designer from Jorhat, Amrit Pritam Dutta, while narrating the importance of creating sounds in a movie at the Press Club in Jorhat on Wednesday said that out of the seven sound designing studios in Mumbai, three were headed by Assamese and all the studios were peopled with sound designers from Assam.
Amrit Pritam quoting Mumbai producer, director, actor and screenwriter Prakash Jha said Jha had also once publicly said that “there is no studio where there is not an Assamese”. Amrit himself is the chief sound designer in Oscar Award Winning Sound Designer Resul Pookutty’s Canaries Post Sound located at Andheri West in Mumbai. Working with him is fellow Jorhatian Arunav Dutta who was conferred the Maharashtra Government State Award for Best Sound Design along with Resul Pookutty for the Marathi film, Kshitij – A Horizon. Sync sound recordist and sound designer Abhishruti Bezbaruah (also from Assam) had also worked with them for about five years.
Others who have made a mark are National Award winner Sound Engineer Debajit Changmai and Sound Designer and Sound Editor Jyoti Chetia. Amrit Pritam said that he was grateful to the media for bringing him so much into focus and the probable reason why so many sound designers from Assam had made their way to work in Mumbai.
Amrit Pritam who had assisted Oscar awardee Resul Pookutty in the award winning Slumdog Millionaire has gone from strength to strength. Having won several awards, Amrit Dutta was invited to be a member of the Motion Pictures Sound Editors (MPSE), USA.
Founded in 1953, the MPSE is an organisation dedicated to improving the recognition of its members by educating the people and the rest of the filmmaking community as to the artistic merit of sound editing. Amrit said that only a handful of sound designers from India had made it to this organisation and he was the only one from Assam.
Amrit Pritam had last year also been invited to join the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences which gives away the Oscars. He spoke in details on how sounds are used to create ambience, foley, which is live sound while filming, and effects which helped to enhance moods of the actor and the action.
Amrit Pritam showed how sound had to be imagined and the time of the day, seasons, place and material had to be taken into account while creating sounds. He is presently working on Robo 2.0, a sequel to Robot. Robo 2.0 starring Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar – which is a science fiction film – will be released in November this year.
He is also working on Jahnu Barua’s Bhoga Khirikee (Broken Window) which is actor Priyanka Chopra’s first Assamese production, a film slated for late December release. The film is a joint venture between Priyanka’s production house Purple Pebbles Pictures and Easterly Entertainment, a Mumbai-based company. Bhoga Khirikee has been written and directed by Jahnu Barua, an internationally acclaimed film director from Assam.
Amrit Pritam has worked in 130 films in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Assamese and Maharashtra and with some of the top producers, directors and actors including Aamir Khan’s Guarini, Akshay Kumar’s Blue, PK, Margarita, with a Straw, Roma since he got a foothold in Mumbai in 2003.
Earlier, the Jorhat Press Club General Secretary, Ananta Narayan Borthakur, delivered the welcome address while Raktim Ranjan Baruah gave a brief introduction of Pritam. The Press Club Jorhat president, Niranjan Mahanta, who presided over the event, offered the vote of thanks.