Ravi Varman

Ravi Varman
Ravi Varman
	Varman in 2011
Born	3 May 1972 (age 52); Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
Nationality	Indian
Occupation(s)	Director of photography, Film Director
Years active	1999—present

S. Ravi Varman (born 3 May 1972) is an Indian cinematographer, filmmaker, producer and writer. He has predominantly worked in films of Indian languages such as Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi. Known for his realistic and poetic framing sense, Ravi Varman began his career in Malayalam films. He has directed a romantic film in Tamil titled Moscowin Kavery and also filmed the music video for the song "Bird Flu" by British Tamil songwriter M.I.A..

Early life

Ravi Varman was born in a village called Poyyoundarkudikkadu near Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India. Varman lost his mother at a young age. Just before she died there was a wedding in his neighborhood and his mother’s image was accidentally captured by the wedding photographer in one of the photos. Varman went to the studio and asked for a picture to be enlarged and learnt what "out of focus" meant. Thus, he developed an interest in photography and grew up with a passion for watching movies – though at the time, he never considered working in film as a possible career.^[1]

Career

He started his career by assisting cinematographer Ravi K Chandran. After working in Malayalam films since 1999 for three years, he worked in Bollywood for the film Yeh Dil in 2003. He later worked in the Telugu film Jai and received more offers in Hindi, such as Armaan, Bee Busthar, Ramji Londonwale, and Phir Milenge, His next project is going to be with Maniratnam.^[2]

Though a Tamilian, it was not until 2002 when he started to work in Tamil films, with his first one being Susi Ganeshan's Five Star. He continued to work with popular directors as cinematographer in Tamil films, including S. Shankar's Anniyan, Gautham Menon's Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, K. S. Ravikumar's Dasavathaaram and Villu, which was directed by Prabhu Deva.^[3] Besides feature films, he has credit of working on more than 500 Television Commercials, Music Albums, Short Films and Documentary. Nonetheless, his flair for literature has led him to embark on writing for an on-line literary magazine 'Yavarum kelir' for Tamiz studio.

Awards and honours

23rd EME France Film Festival Best Cinematographer Award for Santham Malayalam (2000)
Filmfare Best Cinematographer Award for Anniyan (2006)
Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Cinematographer for Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (2007)
Vikitan Best Cinematography Award (south) for Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (2007)
ITFA Best Cinematographer Award for Dasavathaaram (2009)
Star Guild Awards for best cinematography for Barfi! (2012)
Screen Awards for best cinematography for Barfi! (2012)
TOIFA Awards for best cinematography for Barfi! (2012)
IIFA Awards for best cinematography for Barfi! (2012)
Zee Cine Awards for best cinematographer award for Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2014)

Best Cinematography : Ravi Verman for Kaatru Veliyidai(2018)

Vijay Award for Best Cinematographer- Kaatru Veliyidai
Siima Award for Best Cinematographer- Kaatru Veliyidai

Filmography

As director

Moscowin Kavery (2010)
Treasure Music Video (2011) Also as Cinematographer and Lyricist

As producer

Azhagu (2010)
Vellaiya Irukiravan Poi Solla Maatan (2015)

As cinematographer

Films

Year	Film	Language	Notes
1999	Jalamarmaram	Malayalam
2000	Sathyam Sivam Sundaram	Malayalam
2000	Santham	Malayalam
2001	Valliettan	Malayalam
2001	Vakkalathu Narayanankutty	Malayalam
2002	Five Star	Tamil
2003	Yeh Dil	Hindi
2003	Jai	Telugu
2003	Armaan	Hindi
2003	Kilichundan Mampazham	Malayalam
2003	Bee Busthar	Malayalam
2004	Five by Four	English
2004	Phir Milenge	Hindi
2004	Autograph	Tamil	Collaborated with Vijay Milton
2005	Anniyan	Tamil	Filmfare Award for Best Cinematographer – South^[a]
2005	Ramji Londonwale	Hindi
2006	Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu	Tamil	Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Cinematographer
2008	Dasavathaaram	Tamil
2009	Villu	Tamil
2010	Kandahar	Malayalam	Collaborated with Velraj
2011	Badrinath	Telugu
2012	Barfi!	Hindi
2013	Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela	Hindi	Zee Cine Awards 2014 - Best Cinematography
2014	Ugramm	kannada
2015	Tamasha	Hindi
2017	Kaatru Veliyidai	Tamil	Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards for Best Cinematography Vijay Award for Best Cinematographer Behindwoods Gold Medal for Best Cinematographer
2017	Jagga Jasoos	Hindi	Nominated—Filmfare Award for Best Cinematography
2017	Heartbeats	English	Post-Production
2018	Sanju	Hindi
2019	Mission Mangal	Hindi
2019	Kolaambi	Malayalam
TBA	Ponniyin Selvan †	Tamil	Filming

As guest cinematographer

Year	Film	Language	Notes
1999	Vaali	Tamil
2001	Minnale	Tamil	3 songs
2011	7aum Arivu	Tamil	1 Song

As partial cinematographer

Indian 2 (for only 1 schedule)

Music videos

"Bird Flu" by M.I.A. (2007)
"Aarachar" by Thaikkudam Bridge (2016)

Documentaries

Child Environment

Notes

^ Jointly awarded with V. Manikandan

References

^ "Interview with cinematographer Ravi Varman". Chennai Online. Archived from the original on 22 February 2010. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
^ https://raatnam.com/mani-ratnams-heads-overseas-for-a-marathon-shoot/
^ "RAVI VARMAN - The Director, Cinematographer - Sunday special Interview on Dasavatharam Cinematographer Ravi Varman". Behindwoods.com. Retrieved 7 November 2011.

External links

Ravi Varman at IMDb

[4] Jointly awarded with V. Manikandan

[1] "Interview with cinematographer Ravi Varman". Chennai Online. Archived from the original on 22 February 2010. Retrieved 25 May 2011.

[2] ttps://raatnam.com/mani-ratnams-heads-overseas-for-a-marathon-shoot/

[3] "RAVI VARMAN - The Director, Cinematographer - Sunday special Interview on Dasavatharam Cinematographer Ravi Varman". Behindwoods.com. Retrieved 7 November 2011.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[a]

v t e Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Cinematographer
1968–1980	P. N. Sundaram (1968) Marcus Bartley (1969) Amirtham (1970) — (1971) — (1972) — (1973) — (1974) — (1975) — (1976) Babu (1977–78) A. Somasundaram, Nallusamy / Gnanasekar, Tiwary (1978–79) B. S. Lokanath (1979–80) Ashok Kumar (1980–81)
1981–2000	B. Kannan (1981–82) Soumendu Roy (1982–83) — (1984) — (1985) — (1986) — (1987) Ajayan Vincent (1988) Ashok Kumar (1989) Abdul Rahman (1990) Raghunatha Reddy (1991) Santosh Sivan (1992) M. C. Shekar (1993) Jeeva (1994) Santosh Sivan (1995) Arthur A. Wilson (1996) Thangar Bachan (1997) Annadurai (1998) Ilavarasu (1999) Ananda Kuttan (2000)
2001–present	R. Rathnavelu (2001) Arjun Jena (2002) N. K. Ekambaram (2003) B. Kannan (2004) R. D. Rajasekhar (2005) Ravi Varman (2006) Nirav Shah (2007) Arthur A. Wilson (2008) Manoj Paramahamsa (2009) Santosh Sivan / V. Manikandan (2010) Balasubramaniem (2011) M. Sukumar (2012) Siddharth (2013) Nirav Shah (2014) Ramji (2015)