Sep 14, 2006 12:30 PM
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History of the Film:
1944 K.Asif wants to make the biggest film of Indian cinema. Starts the film with Shiraz Ali as the financier
1946 The lead actor dies of heart attack.
1947 Partition of India. Shiraz Ali decides to shift to Pakistan. Film incomplete.
1951 Film restarts with new star cast and Shapoorji Pallonji as the new financier.
1957 Technicolor arrives in India.
1958 K.Asif shoots one reel in color
1959 Impressed by the results, Asif reshoots three more reels in color.
1960 Asif wants to reshoot the whole film in color. Distributors lose patience.
Film releases with 85% in B&W, 15% in color. Film turns out to be the biggest blockbuster of Indian Cinema.
Cost of the film in 1960 –
USD 3,000,000
Cost of Avg Indian film in 1960 –
USD 200,000
1981-2001 :Various people including artists of the film approach Shapoorji Pallonji to colorise the film. SP refuses – the film is too big to be confined just to small screen.
2002: SP engages Indian Academy of Arts and Animation to develop and execute colorization technology for 35 mm and to suit the complexities of MUGHAL-E-AZAM
2003: Technology development complete. Execution Commences.
2004: Film releases on 12th November in colour and seven track Dolby Digital sound. A first of its kind project in World Cinema. Asif's unifinished agenda to be completed……exactly 60 years after he started it.
2005: Feb 19th - Film completes 100 days in 14 cinemahalls in India. One of the longest re-runs for a re-release anywhere in the World. Mughal-E-Azam…….. A Blockbuster again.
2005: Film releases in US/UK on 1st April.
Restoration:
"Restoration is an essential process of colorization. Intense restoration was undertaken as the frames were in bad condition. The negative that was being scanned was actually a Dupe negative that was made in early 80s after the original negative had been used for more than twenty years.
Restoration included digitizing the 300,000 frames of the film at 2K resolution, gamma correction, contrast correction, scratch removal, pinholes removal, digital stitching of torn frames, stabilisation, fungus correction and various other digital restoration techniques. Each step involved processing 3000 GB of data.
The work was done shot-by-shot or frame-by-frame depending on the condition of the negatives. All the above work was performed by a team of restoration and specialists working on high-end computers at Iris Interactive, Chennai. These frames were then
made ready for colorization.
Colorization:
"In the west, colourisation has been looked at as an artificial work or as an unethical attempt to touch an artist's creation. In this case, the purpose was to complete an unfulfilled dream of the creator. The task was undertaken by the original production company, Sterling Investment Corp. Pvt. Ltd.
The original music composer re-recorded the music in a digital environment and the original artists always supported the idea. Hence, there is no unethical attempt."
The software that was used has a very important feature that accepts only those colors that match the gray shades of the original input. This ensures that the final colors are as close as possible to the original.
Since, the kind of colorization required for MUGHAL-E-AZAM was never done before (Mughal-e-Azam has a rich use of exquisite jewelry, fine clothing, grand sets), a special software had to be written to incorporate such features and that too for a 35 mm release.
Since the film is an historical film, the color scheme was regularly discussed with historians. History books of medieval times were referred in order to get the essence of the Mughal Era. An in-depth research of 18 months was undertaken before the actual colourisation started in Oct, 2004 at Indian Academy of Arts and Animation, Mumbai. The whole technology development and execution was undertaken in India.
Post Production:
"The whole film (frame-by-frame) was then given a finished product look through colour balancing and was digitally converted to Wide-Screen format and then recorded to make a new negative at Rajtaru Videosonic, Mumbai."
Making of the music
The original song track of the film was a mono recording with a single track with no separate tracks for the voice and instruments. Making a true to life, 6.1 Dobly Digital/DTS mix from such a track was almost an impossible task. The solution was provided by modern technology, employing a multi level process.
Sound Restoration: The first part was cleaning the noise imbued within the old track with the assistance of Chace Productions LA a specialist in cleaning old tracks who have earlier worked on hollywood classics like "gone with the wind", "A bridge on the river kwai" etc.
Seperation of Voice Track from the Mixed Track: The second complicated task was seperation of the voice track from the mono mixed track. This was painstakingly undertaken as AVA Studio Mumbai.
Re-Recording: Then came the creative part of Re-recording the original background score. The the age of 84, Naushad Sahib worked with this team along with 60 chorus singers and 120 musicians playing original hundustani classical instruments. A special team of musicians was called from Chennai for the Strings section.
6.1 mix: The last step comprised mixing the immortal voices of Ustad Bade Ghulam ali khan, Rafi Sahib, Lataji and Shamshad Begum with the digitally re-recorded background music. The final sound track is now a true dolby / dts 6.1 mix and is as aesthetically satisfying as an original composition and as technologically advances as any 2005 recording.
This re-creation (Colourisation and sound enhancement ) that took 30 minutes of hard work is a true first in the history of world cinema and a proud moment for the Indian Film Industry.
In next part of this review I will write about the synopsis, and trivia of the film.
