A classic gets a new look

A digitally-enhanced colour version of K. Asif's 1960 black and white blockbuster Mughal-e-Azam is ready to woo fans of Indian cinema this month

One of the greatest films of Indian cinema, Mughal-e-Azam, will hit selected screens in India once again, on November 12. Except this time, the film will have a brand new look.

Restoring, colouring and re-recording the sound, without compromising on the original magic, has enhanced the visual and audio experience of the film. Though the producers do not want to reveal the financial details of the new version, it is widely believed to have cost Rs 70 million (Dh5.83 million) to restore.

"The colouring of the film involved 300,000 files of 10 MB each and the studio employed more than 150 professionals," said Deepesh Salgia, project director of the new version.

Though commerce is the driving force behind technology, Sterling Investment Corporation Pvt Ltd (the company behind the restoration), say that it was pure passion that prompted them to undertake this project.

One of the major obstacles that has to be overcome while colouring a film is the scanning of the original at a very high resolution. This process is extremely time consuming and labourious and Salgia said that the money spent on colouring a film is equivalent to the money spent in producing a film from scratch.

Original character

"The software used is designed to provide a similar colour to what was intended in the original. It was customised in such a manner that it accepts only those colours that could have been there during the shoot, thereby retaining the original character and aesthetics of the movie.

"For instance, there was a coat of Dilip Kumar that needed to be coloured. After a few days, the old coat was found in the Mughal-e-Azam warehouse and it had the same colour as brought out by the software."

Software development took more than a year and a half and another year was spent on the colour processing. The colouring was done at The Indian Academy of Arts and Animation.

Purists need not fear about the introduction of colour as Salgia insisted that great care has been taken to ensure that the original look and feel of the characters and film has been maintained.

Salgia's company chose to colour and restore Mughal-e-Azam over many other classic movies as it is considered an epic in every sense. "There should be something phenomenally different when you set out to colour an old black and white film."

Regarding the issue of royalties to K. Asif's family, Salgia said that though nothing has been given to them, there were plans to release the film in Pakistan where K. Asif's family currently resides.

In 1951, the filming of the original began in black and white. By 1957, the concept of colour in film had been introduced in India and Asif decided to film a song in colour.

He was impressed by the end result and went on to film the last three reels in colour. Later, when Asif revealed his desire to film the whole movie in colour, his financiers were understandably perturbed.

Considering that Mughal-e-Azam had already been in the making for nine years, the distributors of the film were not keen on waiting any longer and wanted to release the film in its existing form (85 per cent in black and white and 15 per cent in colour).

The film, based on the legend of the danseuse Anarkali's doomed love for Mughal prince Salim, had magnificent sets of enormous proportions, well-executed battle scenes and powerful dialogues. The famed Sheesh Mahal set alone cost as much as a small film. Four thousand horses and 8,000 men were deployed for the panoramic battle scene.

The film was released in 1960 with a premiere marked by unprecedented pomp, where Prithiviraj Kapoor (one of the actors) arrived on an elephant in full battle regalia. The fiery dialogue between Prithiviraj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar in the film became part of Indian film lore.

Surround sound

While colouring the original they also realised that the quality of sound was fairly dismal. "The original track was a mixed track. Perhaps for the first time an old mixed track has been converted into a true Dolby digital. This movie will now have surround sound (right, left and back).

"Naushad Ali, the original music composer, along with Uttam Singh, Raju Naushad and Gurmeet Singh have been involved in the process of digitally remastering the music. The music has been completely re-recorded.

"Though the voices of the artistes are the same, the instruments have changed and real Dolby effect has been created. The classical instrumentalists were specially flown from Chennai for this," said Salgia.

Another Bollywood bigwig, Yash Chopra, will release his latest offering, Veer-Zaara at the same time but Salgia is not worried about any competition.

"Veer-Zaara will have a threat from Mughal-e-Azam and not the other way round. This is what people are saying. I want only good cinemas for the screening of Mughal-e-Azam," he said.

Financier Dinesh Gandhi who has bought the Mumbai distribution rights of the film at a whopping cost of Rs 2.25 crore believes the film will stand up in front of current box office trends and will attract the youth.

The prints of Mughal-e-Azam are being released in true Dolby 6.1 and will first be released in India. Depending on the response, the film will be released overseas.