Hindi
Jeff Blake extends contract with Sony Pictures till 2012
MUMBAI: Jeff Blake has signed yet another new contract with Sony Pictures. This is ahead of the expiry of Blake‘s current contract with the company that terminates 2008-end.
As per the new long-term contract, Blake will continue to serve as chairman of worldwide marketing and distribution for the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group through 2012.
Apart from overseeing the studio‘s worldwide marketing and distribution division, Blake will also continue to serve as vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) chairman and CEO Michael Lynton said, “Jeff Blake has been and will continue to be one of Sony Pictures‘ most valued senior executives and strategists. Jeff has built an unparalleled global marketing and distribution network, which is recognized as the best in the business.”
Adding to this SPE co-chairman Amy Pascal stated, “Under Jeff‘s leadership since 2002, Sony Pictures has released 52 films, which is by far the best record in town. We are also the only studio to have generated more than $8 billion in domestic marketshare during that time. That is a true testament to his marketing and distribution savvy and I believe those numbers demonstrate that he is unrivaled among his peers.”
Blake has served as vice chairman of SPE since October 2002.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
