Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s Nihar Ranjan Samal, who is now considered one of the most popular and acclaimed sound designers in the Hindi film industry, is on a roll these days. After winning the Filmfare Award in Best Sound Design category for the movie, ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’, he has been flooded with offers and that too, with a chance to work with top directors and actors.
Busy shooting for his next in Chandigarh, the most sought-after technician couldn’t receive the Filmfare trophy personally at the 65th Amazon Filmfare Awards held at Guwahati in Assam last Saturday.
Nihar, who hails from Jajpur district, is all set to team up with Bollywood A-listers like Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Shahid Kapur, Ayushman Khurrana and Vicky Kausal in his next projects.
He has signed “Gulabo Sitabo”, a family comedy-drama film directed by Shoojit Sircar, “Jersey”, a Hindi remake of the Telugu sports drama of the same name, “Maidaan” starring Ajay Devgan and “Sardar Udham Singh”.
Having a packed scheduled for the next two years, the Mumbai-based technician has already started shooting for Shahid Kapoor-starrer “Jersey,” which is scheduled to hit theatres on August 28.
“Gulabo Sitabo”, the Odisha-born sound designer’s second film with director Shoojit Sircar, is slated to release on April 17. The family comedy-drama also stars Ayushman Khurrana.
The award-winning technician is also going to work with Ajay Devgn for the first time in “Maidaan,” which is based on the golden years of Indian football. He wrapped up its first schedule in Mumbai on September 4, 2019.
The film, directed by Amit Ravindernath Sharma of the National award-winning “Badhai Ho” fame, produced by Boney Kapoor, is expected to release this year.
Likewise, he has completed shooting for the Vicky Kausal-starrer “Sardar Udham Singh”, a biopic on the legendary freedom fighter who assassinated Michael O’ Dwyer, the British officer who was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Asked what made him accept these offers, the Mumbai-based technician was quick to reply: The “content”, “directors” and “actors”. “I am not used to do out and out commercial films. Rather, I prefer working in more good content-driven and believable films”.
On how he manages to work on such big projects with different subjects simultaneously, the sound designer said: “Of course, it’s difficult to handle such big projects at one time but I always prefer to do my work alone, which helps me to concentrate more. Besides, I have to work day and night to justify every project and satisfy every director I work with.”
Speaking exclusively toOdisha Bytes about his experience of working with Amitabh Bachchan, Nihar said: “Working with Mr. Bachchan is always a pleasure as he always gives a lot of space to technicians to execute their jobs well and respects us a lot. He understands every bit of technicality and process of filmmaking.”
The Odia technician who won a National Award in 2014 for his brilliant work in “Madras Café” feels very comfortable working with Shoojit Sircar. “I have been working with him (Shoojit Sircar) since Vicky Donor. He is very concerned about the aspect of sound in his films and pays a lot of attention to it. He is a wonderful person and a great director.”
An alumnus of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Nihar has so far worked in over 40 Hindi films. His filmography includes films like ‘3 Idiots’, ‘Vicky Donor’, ‘Tanu Weds Manu’, ‘Ferrari Ki Sawari’, ‘Uri’ ‘Padmavati’, ‘Bajirao Mastani’ among others.
His first Bollywood film was the 1998 Bobby Deol-starrer, “Kareeb”, helmed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
Born to a school teacher father, Nihar did MSc in Physics from Utkal University before landing in the “City of Dreams” to kickstart his, now glorious Bollywood journey.
