Sachin Sudhakaran and Hariharan Muralitharan, National Film Award winner for Best Sound Design, on Soundscape of ‘Animal’, and on sounds of sound in storytelling

When the 71st National Film Awards were announced, Sachin Sudhakaran and Hariharan Muralitharan were at work as usual. “My father called me to inform me, which made it more special,” remember Sachin. He and Hariharan jointly received the National Award for Best Sound Design for Hindi film Animal, “We are grateful; we were not expecting this belief,” Sachin says during this interview.

The pair was recently in Hyderabad, recently on a brief journey to finalize director Lokesh Kanagaraja’s sound design. Coolie Rajinikanth and Nagarjuna Akini starring.

Animal Won three awards at the 71st National Film Awards, including recording (Mr. Rajkrishnan) and best background score (Harshvardhan Rameshwar) for special mention. “Sandeep Reddy Wanga, director, is a clear vision. We saw from that time that we worked with him Arjun Reddy And Kabir SinghHe knows properly where the music should start and end. It is easy when a director and a musician (Harshavardhana) has this clarity, ”says Sachin.

All for realism

Wanga wanted the sound to be realistic, reflects the atmosphere and expresses emotions. For example, for the scene with Ranbir Kapoor, walking in the orbit, walking in the orbit, environmental sounds were recorded in the premises to keep the mood realistic. This task was also to catch the anger with whom gun bullet was fired.

For the 18 -minute action episode of Mammath ‘War Machine Gun’, both music and sound were designed to dramatic and top. Sachin says, “A lot of layering included. If you increase both music and sound by 100%, it will work towards balanced noise, music and silence.”

Sachin and Hariharan are located in Chennai, where they founded Sink Cinema Studio in 2016, four years later they started working together. They met while studying sound engineering at SAE Institute, Chennai. He started as a Foli Artist for Tamil films (everyday Live Live Sounds to a Scene) Pizza And MayaAnd has worked on the sound design of more than 200 films in languages so far

The work brings them to Hyderabad often and the pair suggests that both Chennai and Hyderabad have art sound recording and mixing studios, the choice often rests on the director. For example, Lokesh Kanagarj preferred to live at Sound Engineer Kannan Ganpat, who moved from Chennai to Hyderabad, and therefore Sachin and Hariharan were here to work with Kannan in Annapurna Studio’s Dolby Atomos original suite.

The workflow has been stable. Hariharan laughed and said, “We almost never say,” unless the two films together are a strange case of release dates, until it becomes impossible to work. We had to let Nag Ashwin go. Greatness Because the timeline was very short. ,

A few years ago, he used to get three to four months to work on the voice of the film. The window gradually decreased to 45 days, then a month, and today they face the position of completing the sound design within two to three weeks. He says, “Sometimes we are on board on scripting stage, which gives us an edge to think, plan and record some sounds.”

Sink sound

While most films like to add dialogues to the dubbing studio instead of recording live on the set, some films adopt a difficult path of sink sound recording. Sachin and Hariharan inspect that the sink sound can cut post-production time. “The dubbing process may take two or three months. Recording dialogues on the set is a time saving. We have also seen that the performances of actors are better.”

For film units that are unable to do so due to various reasons, Hari and Sachin try to make the sound realistic by capturing live sounds on the set – the sound of a padyatra, placing a glass on a table or the sound of a handful of a fist on the table. Hari explains, “Imagine to record Ranbir Kapoor’s voice, who in a studio trying to repeat the feeling in a studio, angrily patting his fist on a table on the set of a rich artist trying to repeat the feeling. It would be more authentic,” Hari says.

The pair worked on The Sound of the Tamil web series Suzal That sink was selected for sound recording. “Sriya Reddy later opted to dub her lines in a studio, and we tried to match it with the rest of the sink sound recording.”

Dialogue of Arjun ReddyAlthough a dubbing studio was recorded, was treated like a sink sound. Hari explains in simple words, “We used MIC techniques, echoes and reverence to express the feeling of real place.”

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Sachin and Hari are now working on a handful of films, including director Sujeth. They call her oji Pawan Kalyan, Prabhas-Abhinit starred Raja SaabDirector Vinath Srinivasan’s Malayalam film KaramAnd Vijay’s Tamil film Jan NayaganSachin says, “We also take short films; some directors whose short films we have worked on are now directing feature films.”

As a farewell shot, Hari explains why it is important that storytellers think of sound on the scripting stage: “Each of us has heard the first sound from our mother’s heartbeat, before we see the world. The sound is important.”

Published – August 20, 2025 12:32 pm IST