Santosh Rai Pathaje
Santosh Rai Pathaje is a cinematographer and director working in Kannada cinema. He is also known Sandalwood. As a cinematographer he has worked on movies such as Bhaava Bhamaida and Law and Order.
Early days
Santosh Rai Pathaje comes from the small town of Ajirangala Kaniyoor, near Puttur in the Indian state of Karnataka. He studied at St. Aloysius's in Mangalore, and then graduated in journalism.
Career
After attempting writing and journalism, he studied cinematography at the Government Film and TV Institute in Bangalore for which he made a project film, titled Antharamukhi, with 16mm Kodak film. He then worked as an assistant photographer to Ashok Kashyap on big budget Kannada feature films such as Shivaraj Kumar and Law and Order before moving to Mumbai for two years, where he did a range of corporate and advertising films.
Rai then returned to Karnataka with the intention of becoming a script writer and director. He devised a story called Seven O' Clock but the interest expressed in it by N. M. Suresh, the movie producer, came to nothing at that time as Suresh was busy with other projects. Meanwhile, Rai got offers to handle the camera for two more Kannada feature films, Mithayi Mane and a black comedy film called Mata.
Rai directed his first movie, Seven O' Clock, for Suresh using a cast that included Mithun Thejaswi and Pooja Kanwal. He left the cinematography to Chandrashekar. The movie was not successful at the box office.
Rai and Chandrashekar took similar roles for the former's second movie Savi Savi Nenapu, which again failed at the box office but was dubbed into Telugu.