*Rajiv Menon* Born April 20, 1963 (1963-04-20) (age 45)
Cochin, Kerala, India Occupation Cinematographer & Film director
*Rajiv Menon* (born in India) is a cinematographer and film maker. He is
known for directing the hit Tamil film *Minsaara Kanavu* (1996). While not
making feature films he runs his advertising production house (Rajiv Menon
Productions), film equipment rentals (Mindscreen Pvt Ltd) and film school
(Mindscreen).
Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Film career
- 3 Advertising career
- 4 Filmogrpahy
- 4.1 Director
- 4.2 Cinematographer
- 4.3 Producer
- 5 External links
- 6 References
Early life
Born in Kerala to the popular tamil and malayalam film playback singer
Kalyani Menon, studying all over India, accompanying his father, a naval
officer, who got transferred often, he joined the film school to study
cinematography. Menon did his schooling in Kendriya Vidyalaya on the IIT
Madras campus. Many ad films later, he started off as cinematographer for
Mani Ratnam's Bombay before directing Minsara Kanavu (Sapnay in Hindi) and
Kandukondein…, apart from a few documentaries for Shyam Benegal and a short
film for Girish Karnad. He was the cinematographer for a telugu movie
Chaitanya, which was later dubbed in Tamil as "Madras to Goa".
Film career
His versatality as a cinematographer has received much praise, and
throughout his career, he has worked with accomplished filmmakers like Mani
Ratnam *(Bombay, Guru)*, Shyam Benegal and Girish Karnad *(Cheluvi)*. His
latest contribution has been Mani Ratnam's Guru*.*
Menon's first directorial venture *Minsaara Kanavu* was not only a popular
hit but also fetched Prabhu Deva his first National Award for Choreography.
Also, A R Rahman received National Award for Best Music. His second
directorial venture was the multi-starrer *Kandukondain Kandukondain*. In
addition to directing the film, he also penned the story and screenplay. The
song from this movie "Sandhana Thendril" won singer Shankar Mahadevan his
first National Award.
He has also setup *Rajiv Menon Productions and Mindscreen,* which supplies
equipment for documentaries, advertising films and cinema.
His latest movie is Guru directed by Mainiratnam. His Photography is
commendable in the movie
He has acted in a Malayalam film called 'Harikrishnans' and has appeared for
a few seconds in his own movie "Minsara Kanavu".
His recent work includes a wonderful audio-visual delight about seven great
carnatic musicians. This documentary was made for the event of releasing the
coffee-table book "Voices Within" by the contemporary musicians T.M Krishna
and Bombay Jayashree. The book brings out the personality of seven great
Gurus of Carnatic Music with some very rare photographs presented in great
print quality. The documentary by Rajiv Menon captures the qualities of
these music stalwarts with his gifted inimitable style.
Advertising career
Falling in love with ad-making at a young age, Menon started his career in
the field of ad-photography, and then went on to make a number of TV
commercials. Rajiv Menon has been a well respected and notable personality
in the Indian Advertising circuit. He entered the field during the early
days (1980's) when competiton was nill.It was the time when A R Rahman
decided to do music on his own.They become friends and his creativeness
combined with A R Rahman musicial Jingles fetched attention from all
spectrum towards them. A R Rahman did his first Jingle in a national wide ad
with him(Allwyn Trendy Watches).So far, Rajiv has done many ads with A R
Rahman's Jingles.Noteworthy ones are for *Airtel,Colgate, Palmolive,
Titan,Asian Paints, Raymonds*.
Rajiv Menon's production house was ranked No.3 by Economic Times Mumbai in
2006. The next year's ranking saw the company move to No.2. Rajiv Menon's
production house is setup in Chennai and his agency clients range from
Ogilvy & Mather, Lintas, Rediffusion, Hindustan Thompson Associates, to even
smaller ones like Rubecon and Situations Advertising.
Filmogrpahy
Director
- 1997 - *Minsaara Kanavu*
- 2000 - *Kandukondain Kandukondain*
- 2009 - *Dhun*
Cinematographer
- 1995 - *Bombay*
- 2004 - *Morning Raga*
- 2007 - *Guru*
Producer
- 2001 - *Ussele Ussele* - Tamil pop album featuring singers: Sreenivas,
Karthik and Timmy
http://ogsproject.org/21/rajiv-menon/
--
regards,
Vithur
