Case Studies

A tale of lights, cameras and computer-generated images

Movies these days have brighter colours, mind-boggling stunts and more; even the glitches seem to have disappeared. And it’s all thanks to the use of multimedia and animation. Stanley Glancy offers a peek into how this technology has made movie-watching more interesting

The tension in the air is palpable as Bollywood heartthrob Aamir Khan races on the tracks towards the speeding train, in the movie Ghulam. The train is just seconds away from hitting our daredevil hero when he jumps off the tracks, missing being hit by mere inches.

No, it was not a stunt artist. And contrary to popular belief, neither was it Khan himself. The scene was shot with Aamir Khan running against a static wall, which was later fused with the shot of a running train, resulting in the nail-biting action sequence that was shown on screen.

The collective gasp of the audience resounds throughout the theatre as Rani Mukherjee is hit by a speeding car and goes flying into the midst of oncoming vehicles. A shot that managed to elicit a reaction from even the most cynical viewer. A shot that occupies only 15 seconds in the three-hour long Saathiya. A seemingly simple shot, but one over which the maximum time was expended by the production team. Three weeks, to be precise.

Welcome to the new age of Indian cinema, where talent coalesces with technological wizardry to transform imagination into reality and create images which dreams are made of.

India’s first futuristic film Deham has more than 23 minutes of special effects; the set was entirely computer generated

Why is it that even a low-budget Hollywood-produced movie has a slicker finish than those made in Bollywood? Even a frame-to-frame Bollywood remake somehow lacks the finesse of the Hollywood original. The seemingly impossible action sequence in The Matrix is more believable compared to the on-screen antics of some of our superstars. For that matter, why is it that after churning out more than 800 movies a year India is still unable to produce even one film with stunts and special effects on par with those released by Hollywood? The answer is simple: special effects!

The good news is that, though a bit late in the day, Bollywood has finally woken up to the importance of computer-generated effects (CG) and the magic it can weave on the audience and box-office returns. It is the effective use of animation and multimedia that sets a movie apart and attracts audiences to the theatre.

Of course, nothing can compare to a well-made movie, but Bollywood has realised the hard truth that multimedia is the future. Express Computer took a closer look at some of the recent Bollywood hits, only to realise that, though in a small way, there has been an increasing use of multimedia in most of the big budget movies that were released in the last couple of years.

A shot with a difference
Take for instance the shot described in Saathiya. The story is about a couple who marry for love despite stiff parental opposition. The twist in the tale comes when the heroine meets with an accident on her way home from work. This is one of the most poignant scenes in the movie, made possible thanks to technology. The handiwork is of Pankaj Khandpur, creative director of Tata Elxsi’s Visual Computing Labs, and his team.

The accident itself is a total of six shots shot from 15 different angles. And the icing on the cake is that it is not Rani Mukherjee or even a double who did the stunt, but a male stunt artist "in a sari and a wig who jumped from a height and tumbled onto a mattress placed on the road," says Khandpur. The challenge for the Tata Elxsi team was to fuse the various shots into a single integrated whole, seamlessly. All the shots had to be weaved together to produce a 15 second clip, which finally had the audience staring at the screen in awe. Watching the scene repeatedly, even after five replays, we couldn’t notice any flaw in the final product. The effort had definitely paid off.

Though Saathiya had only a one-minute CG image, there are a spate of recent releases that boast of more than half-an-hour of special effects and animation. The recently released iDream Productions’ children’s movie Jajantaram Mamantaram (J2M2), directed by Soumitra Ranade is a case in point. J2M2 has the distinction of being the first Indian film and the second in the world to have more than an hour of special effects. This loosely based version of Gulliver’s Travels and the Gujarati folklore of Bakasura, takes you on a fantasy trip complete with fairies, man-eating demons and lots of magic. An idea that would have been impossible without oodles of help from Maya Entertainment and its animation team. The movie contains 63 minutes of unbridled CG images (1,800 shots), replete with dazzling special effects.

Gulliver goes digital
If one minute of special effects can take three weeks of hard work, one can only imagine the challenge faced by the Maya team. Explains Rajnigandha Shekhawat, communications officer, Maya Entertainment, "The actors had to act and emote in front of a blue screen instead of each other. Since Javed Jaffery portrays a character six times his size, he emoted in front of 6" sticks with a blue screen forming the backdrop, and the Lilliputians did likewise looking at a 36-feet high pole. The blue chroma was then carefully keyed off and the two layers joined together seamlessly to make it appear as if Jaffery was actually interacting with the little people.

To achieve the natural look, special effects supervisor Prasad Sutar of Maya demanded extensive pre- and on-shoot planning, that included "maintaining tilt angle proportions of the characters throughout the film," planning the lighting of each layer, etc. Each of the 1,800 shots had various layers, some shots had up to 10 layers that needed careful planning and execution.

To achieve a realistic look, the ground level of all the characters, shot separately on different days, had to be constantly monitored so that when the layers were added to each other it looked like all the characters were on the same plain, at the same time. The animation was done mainly on 3D Studio Max and Maya (a software package), while the compositing was done on Flame. The mammoth task, which consumed a whole year, involved 20 animators, two visualisers, three storyboard artists and two associate producers.

Besides J2M2, the animated Bengali series based on the Panchatantra tales, produced by netGuru India was no mean task. The animation and editing, on Incite software, took almost three months. This was in addition to the three months spent on writing the script, storyboard character creation and voice recording. According to Dinanath Gokhale, regional manager-West, netGuru India, the challenge was in delivering an end product comparable to the characters seen on Cartoon Network.

A 13-member team handled the entire project, including the direction. Ghokale claims that this series was the first of its kind in the animation industry, which illustrated the essence of the traditions and culture of ancient India. The interesting part of the story is that a considerable part of the movie was created on Intel workstations. netGuru even developed its own in-house software, AXA, to bring the project to fruition.

Filmi, very filmi
Besides these films, there have been a plethora of Bollywood award-winning blockbusters that have brought about a revolution in the way multimedia is used in today’s film-making environment. Leading the way are big budget multi-starrers like Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Ghum (K3G), Mohabattein and Devdas.

K3G has a total of 42 minutes of CG effects. The most challenging work was the ‘Suraj hua maddham’ song shot in the Egyptian desert. The entire song was colour-corrected—right from the desert sand, to the sky, to the skin-tone of the actors—to render a darker-tone that Indian viewers usually associate with the desert. The sequence where Shahrukh Khan and Kajol’s images have to be juxtaposed with their own images in flashback, required multiple compositing of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol. But the toughest part, according to Khandpur, was the reversal of age, i.e. making the older couple look thirty years younger than they actually were.

Even Oscar nominee Lagaan, has 16 minutes of special effects in the movie. The magnum opus, set in pre-independence late 19th century India, wouldn’t have been possible without the creative wizardry of Pankaj Khandpur and his team (earlier a part of Western Outdoors, now with Tata Elxsi). The opening shot of a tossed coin falling on the map of India took the most amount of time to generate than any other shot in the movie. Khandpur spent almost two months trying to execute the intricate moves of a tossed coin falling to the ground.

Looking at the final output not even an expert can deny that the shot is real, whereas the truth is that even the coin is an animated image. The British flag flying atop the fort, the clouds, the rain and more interestingly the shot where the two heroines and Aamir Khan are juxtaposed in a song sequence wouldn’t have been possible without CG effects.

Even the period buildings, which now have extensions based on modern architecture, were touched up to provide the authentic feel. In fact, a period film of the magnitude of Lagaan wouldn’t have been possible without technology.

The multi-starrer love epic Mohabbatein, is another example of the combination of technology and talent. One would think that a simple tale of love wouldn’t require any animation sequences or special effects. But the team that worked on the movie has delivered a total of 15 minutes of special effects. The maple feel transition, which became the trademark of the movie, was completely computer generated.

Another famous scene in the movie is Amitabh Bachhan paying obeisance to the rising sun. Technological wizardry once again came into play to touch up an afternoon sun in a cloudy London sky and provide the dawn effect seen in the movie.

For that matter, a layman might not find anything interesting about the ‘Silsila yeh chaahat ka’ song sequence in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas either.

This shows the expertise with which Hyderabad-based Digital Art Media (DAM) has executed the project. Aishwarya Rai dancing in the rain with a lit lamp which refuses to go out, invisible effects like unlit candles suddenly springing to light and flying bees wouldn’t have been possible without DAM’s expertise.

The flame that refuses to go out despite the tempest has been digitally created. The company has seamlessly integrated close to 80 shots in that one song itself. Says Vamsi Ayyagari, executive producer at DAM, "We had the opportunity to provide photo realistic effects, which makes it next to impossible for anyone to figure out that most of the objects are actually computer generated. DAM used a hybrid mix of animation and compositing software and NT-based hardware platforms to deliver the visual effects."

Freeze frame
Other than these blockbusters, there have been quite a few experimental movies that have adopted special effects, Govind Nihalani’s Deham is one. Set in the Mumbai of 2022, it would be inconceivable to imagine this film without special effects of any sorts. But though a lot was expected from India’s first futuristic film, financial constraints limited the use of graphics and CG effects. But special effects veteran, Ramesh Meer and his team at FX Factory, have created more than 23 minutes of CG effects for this scientific thriller.

According to Meer, the entire futuristic set was digitally created. The effects were generated by using software like Maya, Softimage, Lightwave 3D, 3D Studio Max and Digital Fusion.

It’s not just movies that have been making use of animation and special effects. Companies like USL WOA, previously known as Western Outdoors, provide animation and multimedia skills in the ad film space. The challenge for the company is in creating a short but highly effective piece, which conveys the message to the viewer in the shortest possible time. More often than not, the message has to be packed into a 30-second commercial.

The AT&T (IDEA Cellular) ad done for MAD Entertainment is a classic example. The shots were composited by Western and replaced by numbers. An example is the violin used in the ad turning into numbers. Other than this ad, Western has done ads for several global majors including Johnson & Johnson, Levi’s and Revlon. The company has also done work on Mission Kashmir, the Hrithik Roshan-Sanjay Dutt starrer. The scene where Roshan jumps 6-8 feet in the air has been done using wires. USL WOA did away with the wires in each single shot to provide the end product. The AT&T (IDEA) and J&J ads took one month each, while Levi’s and Revlon took a week each.

Back to the future
Beside these known examples, Bollywood is planning releases resplendent with visual effects. DAM’sKoi Mil Gaya, Tata Elxsi’ Agni Pank, Boom by Kaizaad Gustaad, Chupke Sei, etc are going to stun viewers with effects. Agni Pank, which is still in the planning stage, will see MIG 21s in flight and in combat.

For Koi Mil Gaya, DAM’s team of eight animators and five compositors worked for close to a year to provide more than 30 minutes of special effects, including modelling, animation and compositing. The work done includes the creation of an exotic spaceship, glow effects and some special scenes in dance sequences. A non-disclosure agreement prevents the studio from revealing more at this point of time, but we should soon see the finished product on the big screen in a few months time.

And as a parting shot we’ll share a well kept secret, the MIGs in Agni Pank are Mumbai-born, generated in the Tata Elxsi lab in Bandra.