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Cracking the code

Steffan Kaminsky, who was on the designing team of the poster of `The Da Vinci Code' on the making of the poster

SECRETS IN SEPIA Coming soon to a theatre near you

It is all happening - first Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code about a Harvard symbologist and a 2,000-year-old secret that would shake the very foundation of the church made publishing history. The books flew off the shelf and soon everyone was looking at Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper for clues and talking of Priory of Sion and Opus Dei knowledgably.

Then we heard of Sony Pictures paying Brown $ 6 million for the film rights. Ron Howard was directing with Tom Hanks playing the symbologist Robert Langdon. There were murmurs of Russell Crowe being considered. The female lead of the French cryptologist, Sophie, went to Audrey Tautou (Amelie).

As the shooting progressed one heard of the Westminster Abbey denying permission to shoot as the book was "theologically unsound" and the French Ministry of Culture, on the other hand, giving permission to shoot in the Louvre. And now the first poster of the film - a teaser is out and thanks to Cinema Paradiso, (55107474/7575), the unique DVD store, one can go and have a look at it.

Cinematographer Santhosh of Cinema Paradiso, has worked with Steffan Kaminski, part of the 16-member team that designed the poster, on Playing by Heart, the 1999 Willard Carroll film starring Angelina Jolie and Dennis Quaid.

Talking about the poster, Steffan Kaminsky says, "Because of the hype surrounding the movie, we are expected to maintain a very low profile about it. This poster has a lot of European influence and reflects a lot of the European cult." Kaminsky, who also worked on the poster of Love Actually is of the opinion that "posters conceptualised in Europe are a lot more poetic than those from the other part of the world."

Commenting about the sepia tones on poster, Santhosh said, "From a cinematographer's point of view, I think the sepia tones are used as most artists in those days worked indoors in candlelight."

Santhosh, who has a passion for collecting posters, is a regular visitor at the annual auction at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The maximum he paid for a poster has been "$1,100 for the 1928 original poster of the American Cinematographer Society. The paper it is printed on was originally brought in from China," Santhosh explains. Then there is an original poster of Sunset Boulevard that cost Santhosh around "$ 250. We do have some rare posters in each store and it is constantly rotated in all the branches."

By happy coincidence, now it is Hyderabad's turn to feast its eyes on The Da Vinci Code poster. And while you are it you can indulge in a slice of Hollywood with Metropolis, Sunset... and lots more.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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