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| Invisible World within Bollywood |
| Omkar Sapre, ET BUREAU That fabulous apartment in Dostana, with the Miami skyline as a backdrop, New York's memorable shots of the Big Apple, or those 50,000 fans cheering the Chak De girls in the grand finale... were never there. Welcome to the 'invisible' world within Bollywood. Things are not as they seem to be. While this is true in real life, Bollywood filmmakers are now taking it a step ahead. Otherwise, why would a film shot in Philadelphia, go under the name of New York and become the biggest hit so far this year? Or one shot in Jaipur goes as Delhi-6 , while almost 50% of Karan Johar's genre-changing Dostana, with its Miamibased storyline, is shot in Mumbai's film city. However, there were others like Dhoom which also used a lot of VFX and broke records. The difference is that all these movies used what movie lovers describe as 'visible special effects' , while movies such as New York, Delhi-6 , Chak De, Dostana, Ghajini, and Om Shanti Om (OSO) among many others are increasingly using 'invisible' special effects , which a viewer would never know, unless told. |
| Money Saver |
 Over the past two years, VFX has come to contribute close to 40% of the film's length, helping film-makers to explore complex stories and scenes leading to a 70-100 % increase in demand for VFX studios. Though VFX's main role is to enhance production values, the huge cost and time of production saved, is a strong driver behind the increasing demand, says Keitan Yadav , COO of redchillies.vfx. "Security concerns are also an issue; can you think of the security needed to shoot with SRK and a packed audience? Some scenes are physically not possible," adds Yadav who along with his team of 75 has in the past three years executed films like Dostana, Chak De, OSO, is now working on six films, including those of Rakesh Roshan and Ashutosh Gowariker. On cost, Chak De is a super case. Shot over two months in Australia, across stadiums, a live shoot would have required at least 10,000 people for those many days as spectators in the stadium. With an artist's rate at $80 to $100 a day, the cost would have been huge. "We created crowds in the matches using background scenes (called plates) shot with around 300 artists in just a day," says Haresh Hingorani, production director at redchillies.vfx. |
| Huge cost savings |
| New York is another case where tough formalities in New York city, saw the Yarsh Raj crew head to Philadelphia and use a digital New York in its scenes. Philadelphia helped save 40% of the total cost of the film, according to an official of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office. |
| VFX: Effective tool in story-telling |
| Around 40% of Delhi-6 used VFX with a majority of the scenes shot in Jaipur. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, director and co-producer of the film along with UTV, says, "VFX is an emerging modern day tool to assist story-telling , cost-cutting is a wrong reason to use it. We used VFX because we could not shoot in Old Delhi and Chandni Chowk as it was crowded." However, he was candid enough to say that he would do anything to save cost and time as a film-maker. |
| Restructuring faces & figures of actors |
| Another surprise use of VFX is to restructure faces and figures of actors, to make them look flawless. However, studios refused to name those actors , for obvious reasons. Though it may not replace make up completely, it can step in to fix lot of problems. "We do a lot of work of 'fixing people' , which we call digital cosmetology. We started doing this from a film, which requires the heroine to go into a 20-year flashback. We had to work on the face, remove the post 20-year wrinkles, folds of skin, adjust her hair, to ensure she would look 20 years younger for the scene! In fact, even body parts can be corrected!" says Pankaj Khandpur , creative director, Tata Elxsi VCL, whose studio also worked on films like Dhoom and New York. |
| VFX, still a small pie in Bollywood |
| According to a Ficci-KPMG report, the VFX industry in India is worth Rs 2.3 billion, while the entire film industry is Rs 109.3 billion. Visual effects , on an average, comprise around 4-5 % of a film's budget , saving 40-50 % on production costs. However, VFX studios earn just Rs 50 lakh to Rs 2 crore a film, on an average, though this is rising , says an industry expert. But the challenge is to get film-makers script stories around visual effects. "Currently, we only help to tell a story. But we are investing time and resources in getting film-makers to start scripting around the possibilities that visual effects offer, which is where the West has moved on to. Indian films are likely to come to that level soon," hopes Pixion's Malik. |
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