Hindi
Prabhu Solomon’s ‘Kayal’ to release in Dolby Atmos, launches its music in Chennai
MUMBAI: Dolby Laboratories, has announced that the much anticipated Indian movie, Kayal will be mixed and released in Dolby Atmos. The announcement was made at the occasion of the music launch of the much anticipated movie, Kayal at the Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. Filmmakers use Dolby Atmos to place and move sounds anywhere in the movie theatre, including overhead, to make film audiences feel as if they are inside the move and not merely watching it.
Kayal is directed by Prabhu Solomon and produced by Madhan of Escape Artists Motion Pictures. The film features newcomers Chandran, Vincent and Anandhi in the lead roles, while D. Imman composes the film’s music.
The Dolby Atmos version of Kayal is being mixed by re-recording sound mixer Tapas Nayak at G Studio in Chennai.
At the audio launch, Prabhu Solomon, Director of Kayal said, “As a film maker, I have always strived to deliver the best possible cinematic entertainment experience for my audiences. The storyline of Kayal is based on a natural calamity and we needed something to make the experience realistic, immersing the audiences in the storyline. Dolby Atmos helped us create that holistic entertainment experience and I think that it is the most amazing cinema sound technology. I truly believe in the power of Dolby Atmos which immerses the viewer into the setting, which in return helped us in telling our story as realistically as possible.”
“With Dolby Atmos, the audiences are no longer watching a movie but experiencing it,” said Pankaj Kedia, Sr. Regional Director – India, South East Asia, ANZ, Dolby Laboratories. “We are confident that movie-goers will go back to cinemas for the extraordinary experience that Dolby Atmos delivers. Dolby Atmos creates a virtual reality of sound by precisely placing and moving sounds to make audiences feel as if they, too, are in the middle of the onscreen action. Kayal will be an extraordinary experience with Dolby Atmos.”
Dolby Atmos has quickly become the preferred choice for next-generation sound in the cinema, with major studios, award-winning filmmakers, and exhibitors from around the world embracing its approach. Unlike traditional channel-based sound systems like 5.1, 7.1, and 11.1, which require filmmakers to think about the number and location of speakers, Dolby Atmos allows them to simply designate where in the cinema space each sound should be placed or moved to make audiences experience the film as if they were within its world.
Also present at the event was the music director of the movie, D.Immanuel Vasanth Dinakaran. While sharing his experience of mixing the movie in Dolby Atmos he said, “Creating music is always very exciting, and Dolby Atmos has added to the whole creative liberty for music composers to create the best sound experience. Music of Kayal has been designed by keeping Dolby Atmos in mind as it powerfully translates the unsaid emotions in the most realistic and immersive experience for our audiences.”
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.
