Thursday, March 5, 2020

Piyush Puty : Cinematographer of Amdavad Ma Famous

Piyush Puty is an experienced cinematographer in the Indian Film Industry who has shot the National Award winning Documentary ‘Amdavad Ma Famous’ followed by Red Chillies Produced ‘Kaamyaab’ and multiple commercials and shorts in between.

Piyush comes from a family who have exposed him to learning about cinema and supporting him learning Photography from early days. His parents Gadadhar Puty and Padmini Puty, both have won National Film awards in 2008 for their Odia feature film ‘Puja Paeen Phula Tie’. But Piyush’s approach has been pretty different, considering he graduated in Physics major to understand optics better before shifting to Mumbai in 2008 and chasing people to get him work and learning in the process of assisting. Piyush did the Film Appreciation course from FTII in 2008, and he was the youngest of his batch. He got a chance to be part of crew for ‘Wake up Sid’ when ace cinematographer Anil Mehta gave him the opportunity. Piyush went on to work with Excel Entertainment on ‘DON 2’ and briefly on Dharma Productions ‘Agneepath’ before giving 19 months on Phantom’s ‘LOOTERA’ where Vikramaditya Motwane and Ishika Mohan Motwane pushed to him to get behind the camera and start shooting. He ended up making the BTS/Documentary on the making of Lootera.

During this course, Piyush got in touch with Hardik Mehta who was the script supervisor of the film. Hardik and Piyush started with shooting small corporate videos for Dolby and AVs for Sony Mix, as independent Director and Cinematographer. Their most notable work came out to be ‘Amdavad Ma Famous’ a 30 minute Documentary that won at Budapest, AL Jazeera, etc before winning the Best Non Feature film of 2015 at National Film Awards.

Success of AMDAVAD MA FAMOUS, specifically for the visuals and cinematography opened the gates for Piyush to various professionals in the industry. Piyush was the cinematographer of ‘Sachin –
A Billion Dreams’ for their initial schedule and co Produced and shot feature length Documentary ‘The Tribal Scoop’, based on the Hockey culture of Sundergarh district of Odisha. He went on to make Short Films for Anurag Kashyap, Hansal Mehta produced short for National Geographic India, Terriby Tiny Talkies, and ‘The Affair’ for Drishyam films before bagging his debut as Cinematographer for a feature Film ‘KAAMYAAB’ releasing this March 6 th .

Apart from this he has shot 2 more feature films ‘BAMFAAD’ for JAR PICTURES and
‘HALAHAL’ for EROS Now and webseries ‘RASBHARI’ for Amazon Prime India, all due
release this year .

Red Chillies Produced ‘KAAMYAAB’ is the story of a dormant character actor who decides to
get back to the industry for one last role. Directed by Hardik Mehta, this film got a stupendous
response at MAMI Film Festival 2019, after having a world premiere at Busan International
Film Festival in 2018. This film has some beautifully crafted recreated visuals of 80s films.

Apart from the long formats, Piyush also happens to have shot commercials for brands like
Mahindra Tractors, Renault, Reliance Digital, Axis Mutual funds, ACC Cement, HDFC, etc
During this time Piyush also shot 2 short films for Flipkart Video, produced by Sikhya
entertainment ‘Thappad’ and ‘Chhaju ke Dahi Bhalle’ that have got great reviews for the
visual story telling and treatment.

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