Two digital studios to come up in Thiruv
Kodambakkam, the Hollywood of the South, may lose some of its sheen with the setting up of two state-of-the-art digital studios in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, the first of which would become operational by September.

The first digital studio is to be set up by state public sector Kerala Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) with an investment of Rs. 40 lakh while the second digital track system (DTS) mixing facility in South India would be installed in September in the KSFDC studios here, according to P. Govinda Pillai, chairman and K Sivaprasad, managing director.

The DTS facility would be provided by the US-based Avid through its Indian partner Real Image Systems of Mumbai. As per the agreement, the KSFDC will not invest any money in the new facility although it would provide the space for the infrastructure while Real Image will install the facility at a cost of Rs. 60 lakh. The revenues accruing from the facility will be shared on a 50:50 basis by KSFDC and Real Image, Sivaprasad said.

Prasad Laboratories would be setting up a digital studio with state-of-the-art facilities in the proposed Film and Video Park promoted by Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) here. The project would commence operations by December. Apart from these, a number of other film, video studios and mixing facilities would come up in the Film park.
For decades, the Malayalam film industry was flocking to Kodambakkam to shoot films because of lack of facilities and finance. KSFDC has already undertaken a three-pronged strategy to bring back Malayalam film makers to Kerala soil.

KSFDC would be deliberately pricing the rentals for DTS mixing and digital studios much lower than the Kodambakkam rates to attract filmmakers. For example, DTS mixing charges per film is Rs. 6 lakh in Chennai while KSFDC plans to provide the service for Rs. 5 lakh. The strategy has paid off, with better studio utilisation and the corporation has been able to wipe the red blot on its balance sheet for the past two years consecutively.

R Sreekumar

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