Resul Pookutty is an Indian film sound designer, sound editor and mixer who along with Richard Pryke and Ian Tapp won the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing for the film Slumdog Millionaire. From sleeping on the streets to be able to see as many international films as he can at the international film festival to conducting a Master Class at the same festival - Resul Pookutty has seen it all. After having donned the sound engineer`s cap for a series of languages apart from his mother tongue, Resul is now ready to do a Konkani and Marathi film in Goa.
Early life of Resul Pookutty
Born in the year 1971 in a family of Vilakkupara, near Punalur about 58 km from Kollam, Kerala, Resul was the youngest of eight children born to an insolvent bankrupt family. His father earned the bread by working as a bus ticket checker. Pookutty had to walk 6 km to the nearest school and study in the light of a kerosene lamp as his village was devoid of electric supply. Darkness had been a pal for this sound mixer and engineer who was to grow up later only to cater enlightenment through sounds.
Pursuing a career in law from Govt.Law College Trivandrum was what made him go for such. However fate had some other plans in store for him. He is a 1995 graduate from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. And later in 2011 June he wrote the remaining LLB exam papers at Trivandrum Govt.law College. And he said that it was Resul`s father`s desire to make him an advocate.
Career of Resul Pookutty
As he attended FTII the journey to the dizzying ladders of lengthy reel fame was not a bed of roses. Rather a tough one, a step by step vertical mobility where they were given 50 rupees a day by the FTII to attend the festival that happened in Kolkata . Films were a childhood dream for Resul, but things were not happening. Despite the sound engineering degree from FTII, he was not getting work. It was a Mumbai call after his graduation which he could hardly resist. His grand debut in sound design had been with the 1997 film Private Detective: Two plus Two plus One, directed by Rajat Kapoor. He got his big break with the critically acclaimed 2005 film Black, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He subsequently engineered sound for major productions like Musafir (2004), Zinda (2006), Traffic Signal (2007), Gandhi, My Father (2007), Saawariya (2007) and Dus Kahaniyaan (2007).
2008 blockbuster Ghajini, starring Aamir Khan and directed by Murugadoss has resul`s name written as the designer. His first major international project Slumdog Millionaire won him an Academy award. His work on the film also won him nation-wide acclaim. Kummatti, Pokkuveyil and Thampu portray the sublime use of sound representing the cultural context. Devadas and Krishnanunny have done immensely truthful work in these films. Inspired by Roshomon, is all set to turn director with a film starring Amitabh Bachchan a faraway from the commonplace plastic reel movie.
Live noise sound has been Resul`s foray as one finds him strictly advocating against dubbing. He nourishes the notion that the human brain can effortlessly score through the sounds that it doesn`t want and hear what it wants. One names it philosophy and Resul connotes it the language of life, of reel, of cinema the richness of the sound being absorbed in it`s being `live` and alive" textures. "Language is just a sound for me," he says. "The words become secondary. It`s the timbre and tone that`s important. That`s expressive........... And I create the desired effect from that".