Ramanujan MK: 'I want to leverage AI to create better ideas'
When films are announced for a Diwali release, the focus is mainly on their star-studded cast. This year, when director Ram Chakri’s Carmeni Selvam, starring Samuthirakani and Gautham Vasudev Menon, was announced as a Diwali release, the focus was on one particular credit. The music for the film is not credited to an individual, but rather to an organisation. Musicloud Studio and Technology is credited as providing ‘Music as a Service’ for Carmeni Selvam. Explaining, director Ram says, “Currently, the cost of producing a film is increasing by the day, which results in the business becoming unsafe for the producer. So in order to back good content, the cost of production has to come down. And one of the ways to go about that was to bring down the cost of music production.”
Ramanujan MK, the founder of Musicloud Studio & Technology, had previously worked with director Ram on Kuraiondrum Illai, headlined by Amrutha Srinivasan. “We wanted to give more structure to the production of music," says Ramanujan/
According to director Ram, with the use of such a service, a revenue model has been worked out between the producers of Carmeni Selvam and Musicloud Studio & Technology. "Under this revenue model, everyone who is involved, like the sound engineers, instrumentalists, programmers, will receive a share of the royalty," says Ram.
Giving an insight into how Musicloud Studio & Technology delivers music, Ramanujan says, “Every movie has its own music. So we, as a company, pick out specialists in each musical style, and by partnering with them, we deliver what the director wants. We are bringing in a corporate structure to music production and treating this as a project where a dedicated QC team reviews the output.” Understanding that this isn't reinventing the wheel, Ramanujan adds, “Bringing in specialists is not new, but when you have a structure, you work with high efficiency.”
A major part of this music production involves the rapidly evolving phenomenon of artificial intelligence. “I won’t call AI a disruption. But I want to leverage it to create better ideas,” says Ramanujan, going on to explain how AI is used in their music production. “If I feed some basic progression through keys as a prompt, instead of me taking one hour to crack a tune, AI will generate some ideas to add layers to the music. Different instrumentalists and singers are brought in to finish the piece.” And how is it different from the mainstream structure that is already in place? "For limited-budget films like Carmeni Selvam, bringing in composers with a certain brand value, and factoring in the cost of music production and their remuneration can become very expensive for any production house. So, we are a one-stop shop."
Speaking about his journey, Ramanujan details, “I started Musicloud Studio & Technology in Bengaluru, back in 2017. I started taking up corporate projects and slowly started to build up my profile, after which I started to partner up with media houses. We provided end-to-end services like sound design, voiceovers, and dubbing. And now... we are here.” Carmeni Selvam is currently set to release theatrically on October 17.
