Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him to world cinema. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. It’s probably the “Prix du document humain” prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D.
“He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed) “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,-about his perfectionism. These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)
Let’s start with that iconic Peters Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master.
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