Trail blazer in film techniques

His keen eye has seen the creation of many a masterpiece. Like a majestic hawk surveying its domain, he has surveyed the domain of Sri Lankan cinema where he has carved an enviable name for himself. He is Dr. D. B. Nihalsingha, master director and pioneer of television and ground breaking film techniques. Reminiscences in Gold managed to meet up with this connoisseur of Sri Lankan cinema in what proved to be a memorable interview.

“My school and my parents definitely had a big influence on what I would eventually become. Both were extremely influential and you can’t disentangle the influence into categories. It was the school, my parents and the university. These were the moulding features. My school gave me a vision of the country and its aspirations. My Principal L. H. Meththananda was a person who spoke out very fearlessly about certain national issues and that had an influence on me. At the same time my father (D.B. Dhanapala) was the founding editor of Lankadeepa and before that he was a journalist at the Ceylon Daily News writing as ‘Janus’. I grew up in a household of a journalist and I know what it was like to be in journalism,” said Nihalsingha.

Nihalsingha recalled the moulding of his character in his Alma Mater Ananda College. It was a Buddhist school, but a Buddhist school with a multicultural background. “Meththananda made sure that there were two to three Tamil students and Muslim students in each class. Students were taught Tamil as a subject, though it was not in the school curriculum. Thus, I grew up in a school where there were students from different ethnic backgrounds and they moved closely with each other. That was the vision I got from the school.”

News reel cameraman

Nihalsingha was also blessed with an artistic and intellectual family background. “My mother was very influential. She was the last Sri Lankan pupil of Grudev Rabindranath Tagore. She was an artist and a sculptress. She was the pioneering women sculptress in the country. And she taught at the Maharagama Training College as Head of the Department of Art and Culture and trained generations of teachers who taught art, sculpture and music in the country. My father was educated at Allahabad University in India and he was equally competent in English and Sinhala.”

Nihalsingha studied Economics at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, yet his heart was in film and he wanted to go into film fairly early. “But my mother said; ‘No! You do your degree and then you do whatever you want.’ So there I was, and I did my degree and then I took to film as a journalist because I started my career as a news reel cameraman for an American Company called Hearst Metrotone News. Those days there was no television. What was there was a news reel which was sent out every week all over the world. Subsequently I was sent to Vietnam in 1965 to cover the war. I came into film as a journalist in news reel work for this American Company.

When he came back from Vietnam, he was asked to be cameraman of Sath Samudura directed by Dr. Siri Gunasinghe. “He called me and said: ‘I would like you to do the camera work for the film I am going to produce.’ With Sath Samudura, I came into feature film making from news reel work.”

Indian influence

Nihalsingha recalls that Sath Samudura was a milestone in many ways. Because at that time the Indian influence on Sri Lankan cinema was very dominant. Ninety percent of the films were moulded in the Indian tradition/style. Most of them were copies of madras films. “I was able to bring the news reel style of camera work into a feature film for the first time. Most of the shots of Sath Samudura were hand held. That was totally different from the Indian tradition where huge cameras were used. There you needed five people just to lift the camera. Here I was holding it by hand. I was used to handling it by hand because that was my job before. The influence of Sath Samudura on Sri Lankan cinematography was significant because for the first time people saw a different style of camera work. The contribution I made was a kind of fluid non-Indianized camera style which was not the norm at that time and it was definitely a breakthrough in that sense,” explained Nihalsingha.

Professional television production

“Subsequently I followed through by participating as a cameraman in many other films until I directed my own film which is Welikathara which was the first cinemascope film in South Asia as well as in Sri Lanka. I did the camera work and the editing. That again was a milestone. The reason is that Gamini Fonseka who was at the zenith of his career and the most expensive actor in Sri Lankan cinema at that time, played a non- hero. He was playing the hero in all the films but here he was a character which was destroying itself as the film progresses. And against him was Joe Abeywickrema, who became a character actor as a result of the film. He was a top class comedian before, and I persuaded him to take the role. And he never looked back after that. He never did a comedy role after that and he became Sri Lanka’s most distinguished character actor. Tissa Abeysekere became a script writer with Welikathara. He wrote his first script for Welikathara and became Sri Lanka’s most distinguished script writer.”

Welikathara introduced many new people, many new techniques and technology and new approach. “I not only promoted actors and actresses but people behind the camera - cameramen, editors and makeup artists. I also pioneered television production in this country. In 1979 I formed Tel Cine, South Asia’s first professional television production company, long before India. I was able to launch many actresses like Devika Mihirani, the first star created by television in the country. So many people were launched through my intervention. Welikathara is the film I liked the most. I’m fond of that. Everybody there made a mark for all time. I don’t think anyone will forget that film. It launched new careers, new turning points and new way of telling a story.”

Nihalsingha was also a pioneer in the tele-drama production. He was instrumental in founding the Tele-Cine Ltd. of which he functioned as its CEO for 16 years. “It was very difficult to form Tele Cine, because there weren’t any people who were trained in television. I had a film unit and I had to bring those people into the company and train film people into television which is why it is called Tele Cine - from cinema to television. We were the first people to make the change from film to television. People found it very difficult to do that, at a time when most people who came to television were from radio. We were the first people to make the change from a cousin media which is film to a cousin media which is television.

That is why our productions have a special quality about it. Dimuthu Muthu, Rekha, Nadee Geethaya and other dramas I did as well as documentaries and commercials. Tele Cine was the largest producers of commercials in South Asia at that time and largest producers of documentaries at that time. Until Rupavahini got going we were the only people around.”

All that he has done cannot be condensed into this article. The work of Dr. D. B. Nihalsingha is revolutionary and speaks for itself. Suffice to say that his commitment and passion towards film has been amazing and the country has richly benefited from his talent.