The sound business of cinema

His plan was to start an audio post-production facility, run it till the outfit stabilised and go back to the campus for a Master’s in computer science. But it didn’t quite work to that script. “Once you start a business, nothing ever works out that way,” says Senthil Kumar, co-founder of the Chennai-based Real Image Media Technologies.

With his family in the film industry, it was but natural for Senthil to get involved in some aspect of the business. Even when studying computer science and engineering at REC (now NIT) Tiruchi, Senthil was helping his father with the audio of a movie. “I realised then how primitive the infrastructure was,” he adds.

When he finished his Bachelor’s, Senthil decided to set up an audio post-production facility using low-cost equipment but of a much better quality than what was available then. Sure enough he got his hands on some good equipment at a good price.

The audio post-production facility was doing quite well when disaster struck. A fire gutted the building that housed the studio and Senthil was left making insurance claims. Even as this was on, he got involved with a friend who was producing a serial for Doordarshan. His friend wanted his help, especially with the post-production that involved editing.

Computer aided editing was beginning to happen and Senthil cast around for the best option. From among the two-three choices available, he settled on Avid which, he says “looked like the most promising one.”

Avid was developed by a US-based start-up. Navodaya, his friend’s company that was producing the tele-serial, bought an Avid system and Senthil helped set it up and train the staff on it. A representative of Avid who came to Chennai a couple of months after Navodaya bought the system, was surprised that the system was up and running and the company was busy editing the serial it had produced.

And, as it happens, one thing led to another. The surprised Avid representative wondered if Senthil would be interested in promoting the technology in India.

This was in the early 1990s. Senthil jumped at the idea and along with two friends — Jayendra Panchapakesan and Vijay Modi — set up Real Image, to demonstrate Avid and sell the technology around the country. “That is how we started, as a re-seller for Avid in India,” says Senthil.

That partnership with Avid continues and the computer-based digital editing technology forever changed the way film editors worked.

Senthil compares using Avid to working on a word processor after the typewriter. Such was the jump in technology. Avid speeded up the editing process and also helped producers and editors get more creative.

Initial investment The initial investment in Real Image was about ₹6 lakh, with the three partners chipping in equally. However, Vijay Modi left the venture a couple of years later and Senthil and Jayendra have been running the show. Real Image took a bank loan to import the first demonstration unit, which then cost about ₹20 lakh. It was ad film-makers who first switched to editing on Avid followed by the film industry, with Kamal Hassan being an early convert.

Real Image is now a leading provider of technology for the film industry, be it in audio, editing or digital exhibition.

Even as they went round the country demonstrating and hawking the new editing technology, the audio studio had been re-built and mixing was now being done digitally.

However, all this was lost because of the poor sound systems in cinemas. Senthil then scouted for a technology that would leapfrog the audio systems in cinemas. This resulted in a tie up with DTS of the US.

Surround sound With this, Real Image set up a studio to mix surround sound and got a few film-makers interested.

However, if DTS was to really take off, cinemas had to switch to the new system.

For this, the film producers and directors needed to be on board. Senthil says they worked out an arrangement with cinema owners thanks to which DTS became popular.

Real Image ploughed back all the profits it made selling Avid into the DTS business. DTS was launched in 1995 and it became a hit in two-three years. This was also when Senthil and Jayendra bought out Vijay Modi’s stake in the venture.

By then the duo also realised that sound was only half the story and it was just a matter of time before picture too went digital.

“This time we didn’t want to bring technology from outside because we could see what was going to come next. We said let us begin development of our own technology. We started work on the software to do digital cinema in early 2000,” says Senthil.

Qube system Real Image’s software for digital films, Qube, hit the market in 2005. What did Qube stand for? “Nothing. We just came up with a name. We were experimenting with names and this sounded clever,” says Senthil. Real Image makes its own equipment and sells both the software and the hardware.

Qube conforms to global standards in digital cinema. The Qube system is installed in about 3,400 cinemas in India and in another 3,000-4,000 outside.

In 2003, Real Image raised private equity funding from StreetEdge, followed by Intel a few years later and Nomura after that, mopping up in all about ₹70 crore.

Real Image’s turnover is about ₹250 crore and growing at a healthy 30 per cent a year. “I guess in a couple of years, we will be ready for an IPO,” says Senthil, asked what exit options the external investors will have.

COMMENT NOW