Nakul Kamte- File photo.

Even today, the deadly sound of galloping horses of dacoits in Ramesh Sippy's film 'Sholay' sends shivers down the spine. The sound was created in the studio by banging coconut shells against each other and some times on the plain stone floors of the recording studio.

One of the last fight scenes in the film 'Naseeb' by Manmohan Desai, is that of the huge glass windows being shot down one by one by the henchmen of the villain. The sound starts from a tinkle of a small glass piece to the fall of larger pieces and then to the crescendo of the entire glass wall collapsing. To get it perfectly, a miniature glass building was constructed in the studio and systematically they were broken to record the perfect sound.

In the Shekhar Kapoor film, 'Mr India,' the famous villain Mogambo played by the late Amresh Puri taps his fingers on a glass orb. The size of each ring is different and so the sound of each finger's tapping had to be different. Four different metals were used to get different sounds and mixed in the recording studio.

V.Shantaram's Marathi film 'Chaani' revolved around the fisher folks. It had to have the sound of oars beating on the seawater. The sound of oars beating on the seawater surface was created by beating oars in bathtub of water brought inside the recording studio.

Surprised or shocked? Perhaps disappointed that the sounds which made many sit riveted to their seats were actually recreated and recorded in a studio? In fact there are many such renovations that the sound mixing artistes have been pulling off their cuffs to make us forget the real world at least for the three hours of a film's watch time.

'Amongst the cinematographers and us sound engineers there is always an argument as to who is more important for a film,' jokingly said Nakul Kamte the young sound engineer who has been in the industry for nearly a decade now and who has been on the teams who have created sound for several young and yuppy hit films such as Dil Chahta Hai, Taare Zameen Par, Lagaan, Bhopal Express etc.

It was Resul Pookutty winning this year's Oscar award in sound mixing category for the film Slumdog Millionaire that drew attention to the all-important impact of sounds in the films. Though every one knew the significance of sound in the success of films, it was just taken for granted and never pondered about the efforts that go behind making a sound success film.

'It is the background sound that differentiates one film from another. For example I was doing Ghajini for Aamir Khan when I got a call from Danny Boyle for Slumdog... The scene I had to do was a romantic scene between Freida Pinto and Dev Patel. I had come out after doing a similar scene where Aamir meets Asin in a romantic scene in Ghajini. So though both the scenes were similar, the sound effects, the texture given to those sounds differed making both the scenes remarkable and that is our job,' explained Pookutty who has been in the film industry for a decade or so.

More than 1,000 films old veteran sound engineer, Kuldeep Sood, who has been with the industry for nearly five decades now and has had an opportunity to work with several masters like Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, V. Shantaram, Ramesh Sippy, Mukul Anand to the latest breed of film directors including Ashutosh Gowarikar, has many funny anecdotes to narrate about the sound mixing 'When I was doing Sholay, we realised that though Gabbar Singh was a very fearsome character, the late actor, Amjad Khan, who played the role didn't have a voice to suit the character. Both Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra had good voices. So to make Amjad bhai sound deadlier we had two mikes so his voice boomed when he mouthed the dialogue, 'Kitne aadmi the'?'

In the same film, the voice of Sanjeev Kumar who ages from being a young police officer to an old Thakur, had to change with the age. 'When we were dubbing for Thakur, we would make Sanjeev bhai gulp ice cubes and smoke several cigarettes to get that gruff voice. After some time, the effect would wear off and the poor man had to do the regimen all over again,' recalled Sood.

Several times a record studio gets converted into a mini set. Like in the same film when Gabbar walks on the rocks with the bullet belt striking the rocks, Sood and company got different sized rocks in the studio. And a metal belt was struck on the rocks to record the sound. 'The best was the spinning of the silver coin of Amitabh Bachchan. I just couldn't get the sound right. Then by chance I got this idea of hitting the studio wall with the coin and letting it run down steps,' he said.

Today the sound scenario has changed. It is more of a sync sound recording that is recording directly while shooting and correcting it in the post-production time. Nearly 10 per cent of Indian films today opt for sync sound recording, which gets a better impact. 'Sync sound or live sound recording has a different effect. Especially when recording the dialogue of artistes. It is always a pleasure to record the dialogues when they are enacting along with the co-stars and the required ambience than in a lifeless studio when the ambience doesn't get the same effect,' explained Kamte.

He recalled the emotional scene in the film Taare Zameen Par where Aamir tries to convince the parents to accept Ishaan (Darseel Safary), who plays a special child, and help him grow. 'It was such an emotional scene and it was difficult to enact without going overboard. We had to record while shooting otherwise it would b e become almost impossible to get the same emotional tones in a dubbing studio,' he said.

The present-day sound engineers have good technical support from pre-recorded sound CDs available in the market. Unlike in the earlier times of Sood when they created physical sound effects and were known as Foley artistes, today almost all sounds are obtainable in the international market and sound engineer's personal library. The Foley effect created then by the New York-based Jack Donovan Foley (1891-1967), who is attributed to developing many sound effect techniques used even today, are almost extinct.

'We do use Foley techniques even today. Like if the scene is shot in a silent room, which is supposed to be a part of an urban flat, in the post-production time, I add the muted background sounds of cars horns, construction of buildings etc, to make it look like a real urban based house. And all these sounds are pre-recorded,' Kamte added.

'In fact whenever we travel, we always carry our recording equipment with us to record some sound or the other.

And this is the universal character of all sound engineers,' said the trio.

Pookutty said, 'Universally all of us work similarly. The difference that one gets in the film is the attitudinal difference of directors and film producers. Abroad, money is no constraint and even if the film is not commercially successful, a fine technical job done is appreciated and acknowledged. Here only the commercial success of the film decided the fate of technicians. And that is why we technicians don't get many accolades.'