Its not that only the animation and superhero type of movies require heavy use of technology, as many believe. Almost every movie depends on technology/software to make some of their scenes better and also to reduce the overall cost. Here are some of the major Tech companies in India that are providing their services to Bollywood.
But before we move ahead, take a look at this video to see how VFX & Animation is used in movies, even for the simple-looking scenes.
I’m sure you’re already saying ‘Wow’!
But then, its not just the big budget movies that require help, VFX & Animation is used even in Television series, Documentaries/ Short films, Music videos, DVDs, Commercials, Title montage, Game cinema tics, Medical animations, Architectural walkthroughs and many other related projects.
No wonder most of these technology companies have dedicated state-of-the-art facilities with technical, creative and production capabilities to create new generation of VFX & Animation.
Tata Elxsi’s visual computing labs had worked extensively for the movie Dhoom. The idea of virtual sets was used to show Hrithik and Aishwarya stealing from the museum in an ancient, heavily guarded fort in Rajasthan.
Live shooting was done in Mumbai and the forts were recreated on a computer which were then merged to give the actual effect and enthrall the audience.
In Jodhaa Akbar, the battle sequences were about 80% virtual, clubbed with some real shots. These are known as CGI (computer-generated imagery) elements and it works in this manner.
First a scene is shot with some rows of soldiers, 20 elephants and horses. These images are then recreated to multiply the number of people and animals to show the full battle ground. In Jodhaa Akbar’s three and a half hours, special effects constituted 40 minutes.
Tata also did some period restoration effects for Amer Fort, in a bid to give an ancient look and feel. In a scene that had Aishwarya looking out of a window, one could see the scaffolding and recent painting effects clearly in the shots. Technology was used to remove the scaffolding and signs of the modern day changes.
And doing all these sequences requires tons of processing power which can be gauged from the fact that to support this kind of work, the engineers installed about 40 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity. For Jodhaa Akbar about 8 TB of storage was used along with 200 CPUs for rendering (a process of generating an image from a model), 8 persons for IT management and 70 CPUs for artists working on the creation and reworking of images.
Ra.One Visual Effects, done by RedChillies
So you can imagine the amount of work and technology related infrastructure that goes into the making of movies that use special effects extensively.
