IT’S THE “PAISA VASOOL SHOT” of the year’s biggest hit, Rang De Basanti. Aamir Khan and his buddies sprint towards a runway through paddy fields and leap up in the air as a MiG takes off above their heads. Well, the paddy fields and the people are for real, but little else. The runway and the MiG were added at Tata Elxsi’s Visual Computing Labs (VCL) in Mumbai.
“We deleted the village and put in an air base instead. The aircraft was created digitally too,’’ says K. Chandrashekar, general manager and head, VCL. Bollywood is waking up to the world of DI (digital imaging) and VFX (visual effects), and high-end CG (computer graphics) labs like VCL and Pixion (or the latest entrant nVidia) aren’t complaining.
Rang De had a good half-hour of VFX, which took a 20 member crew four months to create. And, even if the audience never knew, because the effects were integrated so seamlessly into the “real” visuals, most of the big hits of the past couple of years have used CG. In Bunty Aur Babli, the Big B was nowhere near the train when he caught up with Abhishek and Rani; he shot at the studio, the train was added on at the lab. Veer Zara, Salaam Namaste, Swades, Hum Tum, all opted for visual enhancement, and not the cleaning up variety earlier done during post-produc-tion.
The submarine used in Shyam Benegal’s Netaji—the U-180 that carries Bose from Germany to Japan was also lab-created.
“VFX is no longer an afterthought. Directors now plan for visual effects and spend Rs 50 lakh to Rs 2-3 crore per film to tell the story as creatively as possible,” explains Bhaskar Dutt, head, marketing, VCL. For instance, VCL turned day into night in Rang De. “The director was intent on getting a night look for the jeep rides and though it was actually shot in daytime, we used our software tools to put in the lights.’’
VCL has also done a string of visual effects for Hollywood films, including XXX2, Sony/MGM’s Into the Blue and is wrapping up work on the Omar Sharif/Peter O’Toole biblical tale One Night with a King. “The story needed a palace surrounded by hills. The producers filmed at Umaid Bhavan in Jodhpur, and we filled in the background,” says Dutt. According to Nasscom, post production work of US and European film studios being outsourced to India could grow to a staggering $950 million by 2009.
“The idea is to support the narrative, and never be in your face,’’ insists Dutt. “And it’s a misplaced belief that visual effects are always expensive. If you know the right tools to use, they will save you a lot of money,’’ he adds, pointing out that that’s exactly what VCL is doing for Dhoom 2. “We have visualised a lot of the action shots before they actually shoot it, so the team can avoid wastage. If you get the timing right for an action se-quence, you save loads of money. On location they will know exactly what to do.’’
Also in the pipeline, there’s theatre actor Feroz Khan’s My Father Gandhi and Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. It’s the second time Johar is falling back on VCL. When he was watching the rushes of Kal Ho Na Ho—it has 42 minutes of special effects he was dismayed to find Preity Zinta without a dupatta in the song Mahi Ve. He didn’t re-shoot. The essential accessory was added on at VCL.
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