Subrata Mitra to a cameraman...Almost every shot of "Pather Panchali" posed a problem for me, innumerable problems, many sleepless nights spent on ruminating over the prospects of the next day's shooting..."Pather Panchali" had many excellent shots--both technically and artistically, but it had many bad shots too." From 1997 until his death, Mitra was an emeritus professor of cinematography at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) at Kolkata. Subrata Mitra Subrata Mitra (12 October 1930 – 7 December 2001) was an Indian cinematographer. Acclaimed for his work in "The Apu Trilogy" (1955–1959), Mitra is often considered one of the greatest of
Satyajit Ray and "Rupasi Bangla", Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's "Chander Pahar", Jim Corbett's "Maneaters of Kumaon," and Jawaharlal Nehru's "Discovery of India." He worked on a children's version of "Pather Panchali," a classic Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, renamed as "Aam Antir Bhepu" ("The mango-seed whistle"). Designing the cover and illustrating the book, Ray was deeply influenced by the work. He used it as the subject of his first film, and featured his illustrations as shots in his ground-breaking film. Along with Chidananda Dasgupta and others, Ray founded the Calcutta Film Society in 1947. They screened many foreign films, many of which Ray watched