''SURIYA SIR INQUIRED ABOUT ME ...''

Ashwin Saravanan’s maiden directorial venture Maya, has been receiving good response from all over. The film belongs to the horror genre and one of the major contributing factors for the ‘scare’ element in the film is definitely its BGM which is scored by the young Ron Yohann.

The talented music composer speaks to behindwoods on his journey:

Family

I belong to a musical family and I am the fourth generation musician. My great grandfather Patrick Das was an All Indio Radio vidwan. My grandfather Xavier and father Rajan are guitarists and have played for MSV sir and KV Mahadevan sir. I have been nurtured into this musical background from childhood days. I have always wanted to become a music director.

Maya

Maya is my first film and I was brought on to this project when producers heard my sample compositions and liked them. Afterwards, I met Ashwin who narrated the script to me and I liked it a lot. I realized that it was very atmospheric stuff and had a big scope for the musical score.

Scoring for Maya

The entire film was challenging. It was shot well, everyone did their part well and I had the huge responsibility of taking the film to the next level.  

One thing I liked about Maya was the journey. Working with Ashwin was very creative. Usually directors give references. But Ashwin wanted me to give inputs and he did not give me any suggestions. Hence my responsibility was more. Someone is trusting me so much and I should not let them down. We had discussions of how to approach the script. I was keen that the music should be in a balanced manner - it should neither go overboard nor be very subtle. It had to be in such a way so as to move the narrative forward. We decided upon the themes first and then the orchestrations of the sequences. We went into the details and worked a lot. It was a collaborative effort and was fun.

I composed two themes - one emotional and the other horror. I just made sure I should not deviate from the script. Usually in horror movies BGM will be more noticed. My contention was to support the story and I did not want people concentrating more on the music than the story. I knew where I had to emphasize and where I had to shoulder the feel.

Maya is more about the emotional journey of Apsara, an orphaned, struggling single mother and it is very important that it has to be dramatic, emotionally driving but at the same time not very melodramatic.

Appreciation

The producers told me that Suriya sir, after seeing the film had supposedly inquired about the cinematographer and music director of the film. I was happy. Besides, many celebrities are tweeting about my work.

With such appreciation from everywhere, Ron Yohann is bound to go places and we wish him all the best!