Attique Hanuk

"You Judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose".

                                                                                       -ORSON WELLS


Human beings have always used stories to justify their existence…these stories bridge the gap in their knowledge of the past, help them to draw conclusions for the present and calm anxieties for the future. For centuries they have been used to transfer insight and ideas.

The art of story telling has always fascinated me, even when I was a mere listener of these stories… I was always intrigued by the story teller’s ability to breathe life in the characters… making them real…  as if… they really existed somewhere.

To me, all creativity relates a narrative… it is limited only by the precincts of the medium and the imagination of its practitioner… and/or the recipient…  I was searching for an anomaly that surpassed these confines.

My passion for audiovisual media stems from the realisation of its uniqueness as an art form, which, in order to create a convincing narrative, employs other disciplines for its expression… such as photography, music and written word.

Somehow, I have always been associated with this field in one way or another, starting from street theatre drama, moving on to voiceover for advertisements, writing copy/ jingles, working as a runner in different production companies to researching, producing and presenting my own show on local radio.

My education in Media and Broadcasting (moving image) seemed to be a natural progression to this passion. This perpetuating skill asset helped me prove to myself that, not only do I possess the aptitude to learn and grow in this craft; I also have the required knowledge and experience to generate original work.  This resulted in my confidence to constructively transcribe a piece from other classical and contemporary masters.

Since Music has become an essential accompaniment to any imagery today, fortunately my training in the discipline of North Indian Classical music equipped me with an insight into tonal representation of human emotion. This familiarity with the construction, timing and rendition of ragas… and of rhythmic cycles, gave me the credence to comment on film music… particularly Bollywood’s.

Films being Show business, essentially, are a business at the core; having a business marketing degree enables me to evaluate and speculate on trends of the market. This erudition of content with context eventually influences my interpretation of creative ideas into a saleable product.

Working as a language research assistant during my college days further channelised my intellectual curiosity towards sourcing and presentation of information with professional accuracy. Here, I developed a life long attitude of systematic thinking and an analytical disposition. This must also have been the start of my binge on reading… which is showing no signs of curative retreat.