Draft:Sharad Navle

Sharad Navle
Sharad Navle is an India cinematographer, corporate film photographer and a serial entrepreneur. He completed his Diploma in Cinematography from FTII Pune in 1975 and is known for cinematography in films such as the Murder at Monkey Hill (1975), Sarvasakshi (1978) and Adharshila (1982). In the last many years he was focused on Media related businesses and last owned an LED business in Pune, India.

Early Life & Education:
Born 21 May 1954 in Pune to Daulat Navle who was a renowned Lawyer in Maharashtra and Kamal Navle a trained Homeopathy Doctor and a homemaker. Sharad completed his schooling from St Vincents High School, Pune and then went on to pursue a Diploma in Cinematography from FTII, Pune. After completing his diploma in 1975 he also completed a MA in Economics from Fergusson College. He was influenced by theatre and the performing arts in Pune since a very young age.

Career:
After completing Diploma in Cinematography in 1975 from FTII Sharad joined Raj Kapoor’s Orwo Films for a short span of 6 months. He also taught photography at FTII.

He started his career with Vidhu Vinod Chopra's diploma film Murder at Monkey Hill (1976), which won the National Film Award for Best Short Experimental Film and the Guru Dutt Memorial Award for Best Student Film

Sharad started shooting documentary films right after completing his education and started building his network in the film fraternity. In 1977-78 – he worked as a cinematographer with Ramdas Phutane and Smita Patil on a Marathi film Sarvasakshi. Raju Mishra assisted him on this film as assistant cinematographer. The film was released in the year 1980.

He also shot multiple documentary films for the Government of Maharashtra on subjects like – farming, healthcare etc. He also began filming corporate films for organizations such as Thermax.

In 1979 – Sharad set up his studio/workshop named Riverside and started delving into multimedia projects. Multi-projector slideshows for organizations like Thermax were Riverside’s key offerings.

Between 1980 and 1982 he bought his own camera equipment and shot a film of Deaddiction (Daarubandi). While continuing to make Corporate films for organizations like Thermax, Vulcan Laval;

During these years he also worked on Ashok Ahuja’s film Adharshila with Naseeruddin Shah, Anita Kanwar, Neena Gupta and Pankaj Kapoor.

Continuing his penchant for new technology – he imported the Amiga computers in 1984-85 and started Animation work at Riverside for his clients which continued to be a prime focus until 1989. He also started an advertising agency between 1985-86.

In 1986 he partially shot Ashok Ahuja’s film Vasundhara during which he developed a severe eye-related condition due to which he had to stop shooting and the rest of the film was completed by cinematographer Rajan Kothari. He continued doing films in Marathi with Sumitra Bhave from 1985 to 1989.

Continuing his exploration in the world of new technologies – Sharad was the first in India to import the software 3D Studio which further boosted the demand for his work among the long list of elite clients. He also invested in Mirus slide recorder in 1990 and was the first to introduce the Targa card in India which was purchased by every big newspaper publication across the country.

In the year 1992 he started a business in CD ROM pioneering the CD ROM technology in India until 1995. He worked on multiple photography and multimedia projects like Temples of India, Goa and Iyengar Yoga which were all sold in a CD ROM format and were a huge rage.

In 1995 he sold the CD ROM business to the Kirloskars and then moved into making interactive CDs in 1996. The years 1997 to 2006 Riverside saw a lot of interactive presentations, CD ROMs and website development work including the Dubai Shopping Festival, Coke etc. In 2004 he signed up a contract with B&H to supply videography equipment in India.

In 2006, Sharad set up LED Images business and was among the first to bring the LED screen technology to India. He manufactured LED Screens and was highly sought after for the excellent quality screens which were installed at major cities in India including Mumbai, Delhi, Amritsar, Kolkatta and Chennai. In 2016 he sold LED Images to ADOR and worked with them as a consultant till 2019.

Present Life:[edit]
Sharad is settled in New York, USA and travels often to London to be with his son Akshay, daughter-in-law Tana and three grandchildren.