‘Toofan’ seems to have taken Bangladesh by storm. With an imdb score of 8.4 and gaining over Taka 25 crore (US$2.1 million) in the box office, ‘Toofan’ is force to be reckoned with. But the question arises that who is behind all those fantastical shots? That not only captured the film’s essence but the audience’s heart.
Tahsin Rahman is the virtuoso cinematographer of ‘Toofan’, who has previously worked on the 2019 TV series ‘Sydney Sleuthers’, 2022 TV mini series ‘Pett Kata Shaw’, 2021 web series “Boli”, 2017 short film ‘searching for Babel’ and so on. He graduated from North South University with a degree in Computer science and Engineering and then received his Masters in Moving image from University of Sydney and an Advanced Diploma in cinematography from Sydney Film School.
Tashin talked to Dhaka Tribune Showtime’s Tanzim Pervaz about his career as a cinematographer and his experience working on the set of ‘Toofan’.
Why did you choose cinematography as a career?
Cinematography as a career was an accidental choice to be honest. During university, there was a photography club. While taking pictures, I found passion in photography. And then we used to go on many tours and stuff. There was a contest at University called the ‘Ad makers where we won third prize in the National round. From there I started working at a production house who produced commercials . Back then most high end tv commercials were shot by Bollywood cinematographers. Assisting them on set was my first introduction to cinematography. Then I get to assist one of the renowned cinematographer Murshed Bipul for few years. During those years I decided that I want to pursue cinematography as a career.
How do you approach a film’s script?
The approach starts from the script. First of all, we look at the story, if it attracts me in any way, do I connect to it, how much personal involvement will I have. Then we look at scope of opportunity to work on. Like for example we always don’t get good stories, it also depends on what kind of budget we get to work with, what kind of equipment we receive, how much support we receive, whether they can actually afford our team or not. So, these are some of the things we have to consider when we say yes to a new script.
How do you approach a film’s design?
Film design starts with analysing the script and countless conversation with the director about how he/she approaches the film. As a cinematographer my primary job is reflecting the directors vision on screen. The main perp of a film starts with location Reece with the team. The whole idea the vision starts unfolding there. Designing the whole film with all the head of departments like production designer, costume designer hair and makeup on paper a major part of a film production .Then before the shoot lots of decisions has to be made like what type of camera and lens we can afford according to budget, what sort of lighting package we can work with , sorting out the grip equipments and lastly finalising the key crews. Then its time for final scheduling and the magic starts to roll on shooting floor.
Is there any particular genre you prefer working on?
I really like working on real life stories. Things that are happening around me.
Like non-fiction?
Not really non-fiction. I don’t really like doing non-fiction. I do documentaries and all but that’s a different part of my job. But that’s not actually non-fiction, each project has their own charm. Depends on the type of story telling. Like for example “toofan” was a larger than life kind of story so that is it’s charm. But personally I really like to do real life stories.
As we just talked about 'Toofan' what was your experience working with the actors, for example Shakib Khan?
To be honest, this was my first time working with Shakib Khan. I have never worked with him before. Though I have been doing commercials for a long time, I have done almost 300 commercials but somehow our schedules didn’t match and hence we never got to work together before. But this was the very first time working with him, I’m absolutely surprised by how ‘intelligent’ of an actor he is. I would exactly use the word ‘intelligent’ because he knows exactly what to do, when to do and how to do on the film set. It was an absolutely amazing experience. I initially thought he would be very ‘star like’ but in actuality he is very down to earth, he knew how he wanted to do the scenes. And if we had any suggestions he would gladly take it. He was an absolute blast to work with.
Do you have a dream director that you would like to work with?
Dream director? It is a very tough question, there are a lot of people that I like. But if I got work with anyone, it would probably be Anurag Kashyap. Someone like him, some who works on real life stories in a very extravagant way. Someone like him would very great to work with.
About ‘Toofan’ is there any you would do differently?
Differently as in like, if we had a bit more time then we could have added more things in the actions scenes or the song choreography. The deadline was before Eid, so we had finish all the things in a time crunch. So if we got 1 or 2 more days on set for the major sequences we could have polished it more. I don’t think our work would differ that much but could have been even more refined.
If someone young were to get into cinematography, what would be your advice to them?
To make cinematography work start with one frame, a single picture. You know there are 24 frames in cinema but it always starts with one frame, like what do we see in one frame, to the young people out there, I would honestly suggest that shoot more pictures first rather than shooting a whole video. Like nowadays, we see a lot of content creators and a lot of people that they shoot whatever and where ever. This is also another approach one can take but it always starts with one frame. So as soon as you are a better photographer you are one step closer to being a great cinematographer.
