Surya Prasadh R: Background of a debut

A music director is all set to debut in a film with no songs. The debutant, Surya Prasadh R, says this was more circumstances than his guts. Luck turned Surya’s way when Santosh (director of Manasellam) introduced him to Naveen Nanjundan, director of Sathru. “They were looking for someone for to compose the background score because they weren’t satisfied with the work with the previous music director. I spoke with the director, the next day he listened to my work and on the third day I had the footage.”

He finished the work in 2017 and had to wait for nearly two years before the film saw the light of the day. “I did an independent film IPC 306 directed by Sai Aravind, the title song for Ma Ma Ki Ki for Sameer Bharat Ram (co-producer of Uriyadi) and produced music for Samantha’s U-Turn. But I really wished for this to release as this was my first full-fledged film.” Surya has been reading the reviews for the film and he is happy people have spared words of praise for his work. “I saw the film and it was way better than the version I saw in 2017 which had songs. I was happy to see that the director’s vision was fully realised.”

Surya’s inspiration for background score is Hans Zimmer, who he believes has shown there is innovation in mainstream cinema. “I have derived inspiration for this film from his music and didn’t need to do any specific homework.” He is particularly proud of the themes he has created for the film. “For the villain we have used trumpets while for his gang we have used a Turkish Oud.” Ask him his favourite scene from the film he talks about two in particular. “I loved merging the themes of the hero and villain into one when they meet at the hospital. Another one would be the 5-6 mins Operation Amla Sequence. If the usual tempo increase is say from 0-200 for this scene, I had to start at 120 and drive it up all the way to 240. I think that really set the mood for not just that scene but what followed too.” Surya has two upcoming projects — Patravaitha Nerupondru in Tamil and a Malayalam film in the pipeline.

(Photo credits: Manieesha Sambandam)