OSCAR-WINNER RESUL POOKUTTY ON DESIGNING THE SOUND

“The filming involved huge crowds, as many as two to five thousand people. Fahadh had apprehensions and called me up to say ‘When I am doing my voice right, I am not getting the body language right and when my body language is right, I am not getting the voice correct.’ I told him you just go ahead with it. For me every flaw is seen as an advantage. While shooting in sync, it’s not about doing everything right but about being live with it. There are a lot of accidents that happen and these go to make a scene memorable and super-human like-the result is a brilliant performance.

“The director was very pro-sync. No one complained when we asked for retakes or asked for more time, Anwar even pushed the release by a week for me to finish the mix comfortably. We did this film with so much love.

“The protagonist goes through some situations in life that required a series of psychological analysis through sound. Trance is a state of mind. What takes him into that state of mind? We arrived at a soundscape through careful use of sounds to emulate a feeling of trance. Prior to Trance,

I worked on a film, Thaakkol, based on the Christian tradition. For Thaakkol, I was analysing sounds of Christianity and went into the deep aspect of this community through sound. The very sound palette used as identification in Thakkol was used as subversion in Trance.

“In the second half, the story moves to another plane where sound is used stylishly and in a very unorthodox way. We had to strike a balance with quiet moments, slow paced moments and not make it a harsh experience. Sound has the ability to sub-consciously affect you and there is a conscious use of the same in Trance.”