This story is from August 5, 2016

Making the impossible possible

Have you ever wondered why Rajinikanth as Chitti in Endhiran is always seen sporting costumes that are tight and stiff?
Making the impossible possible
Have you ever wondered why Rajinikanth as Chitti in Endhiran is always seen sporting costumes that are tight and stiff, a hairstyle that calls for short hair, and shades? That is a decision that was taken by director Shankar after discussions with Srinivas Mohan, the VFX supervisor of the film. So, why did Mohan suggest these to Shankar? ���A flowing costume or lengthy hair is difficult to manage using visual effects (VFX).
Similarly, getting the eye right is one of the extremely tricky and labour-intensive works, so by having the character wear shades, we eliminated the problem. This approach helped save both time and money (almost 20% of the film���s VFX budget) without sacrificing the vision of the director,��� says Mohan, a National Award-winning VFX supervisor, who has worked on many high-profile films like Endhiran, B��hubali, and is now working on 2.0.
While earlier films employed visual effects to create things that were impossible to create in the real world (say, fantasy or period elements), nowadays, filmmakers are using it as a tool to even cut budget. Even small-budget films use VFX today, but the only difference is that these are largely invisible effects ��� creating a backdrop, or magnifying a crowd or even ageing an actor or making them look young. ���In the recent Bollywood film, Sultan, there are portions where Salman Khan plays a younger version of himself, and for those scenes, we had to remove the actor���s double chin, eye bags, black spots and so on. These are unseen VFX and these are employed even in small-budget films,��� says Ramesh Jayaraman, an executive VFX producer at Chennai-based Kryos Digital.
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VFX SUPERVISOR AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
���While Hollywood films usually have VFX supervision and executive production as separate responsibilities, in our industry, the VFX supervisor or the executive producer handles both the jobs, though VFX studios do have separate individuals to take care of these works. While independent VFX supervisors handle both creative and administration-related processes, in studios, the executive producer oversees both these procedures, and is ranked a rung higher than the VFX supervisor,��� says Pradeep B, executive producer at Prism & Pixels.

PRE-PRODUCTION RESPONSIBILITIES
The VFX supervisor becomes part of the film during the ideation of the script itself and travels with the film until its release. ���Once a director conceives a story, there will be some scenes or elements in the scenes that cannot be done live. So, it is the full responsibility of the VFX supervisor to bring his vision alive on screen,��� Srinivas Mohan elaborates on what a VFX supervisor does in films.
Directors generally discuss with the supervisor if a certain sequence could be created through visual effects and only then, go ahead with it. ���For Sivaji, Shankar wanted to know if you can turn a person���s skin tone white and then used that for the Style song, where Rajinikanth becomes a white man. KV Anand discussed the possibility of presenting conjoined twins onscreen before going ahead with Maattrraan,��� says Mohan.
The pre-production work of a VFX supervisor involves converting the visual that is on the director���s mind to paper. This, he does through concept art and animation (called pre-vis). During this stage, the cinematographer, the art director and the heads of the other departments give their inputs on what can be done for real and what cannot. ���In B��hubali, the city, Mahishmati has 80ft palace, and constructing an 80ft set not only becomes a costly affair, but also a time consuming and risky one. So, based on the pre-vis, which gives an idea of where the characters will be on screen and how they will move, as VFX supervisor, I suggested the portions of the set that need to be constructed for real and those could be created inside a computer,��� says Mohan.
DURING THE SHOOT
The VFX supervisor will also need to be on the set every day of the shoot. ���That is because only the VFX person will know what the final output will look like on screen, and he needs to guide the actors, who will be working in front of a green or blue screen. He also needs to discuss the camera angles, lenses and lighting with the cinematographer, so that the same can be matched in the VFX portions done inside the computer,��� explains Pradeep.
���The same shot can be done in many ways and the cost of the VFX will vary depending on the angle or the lens or the lighting used, and it is the job of the supervisor to suggest the right angle or lens or lighting which would be cost-effective and at the same time, stay true to the script���s intentions,��� says Mohan.
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THE POST PROCESSES
In post-production, the VFX supervisor chooses the talents needed to create the effects that the shots need. They select the VFX studios that could work on the shots based on their speciality, specify the tasks that each team needs to execute, and provide post-vis (rough visuals that give an idea on what the effects will look like on screen) for the editing, re-recording and dubbing works. ���The animators and VFX artistes will only know of the tasks that they are set, and it is the VFX supervisor who will have the complete idea of the full output,��� says Mohan.
Finally, it is the VFX supervisor who is in-charge of getting the cinematographer���s approval after all the effects work and the DI work is done.
BUDGETING IS CRUCIAL
While most Hollywood films devote 50% of their budget to VFX, in Kollywood, generally, it is only about 15-20%. ���B��hubali had a budget of `150 crores and its VFX budget was `22 crore. And yet, we managed to create effects that, even when they were not on par with what you see in Hollywood films, came close (say, 80%) to matching them,��� says Mohan. ���For me, what matters most is how much of an impact the VFX adds to the scene and the film,��� he adds.
Directors need to have a clarity of vision and have an idea of the budget that a VFX scene will involve. ���That is why if any young director approaches me, I spend an hour with them explaining how VFX scenes have to be budgeted for and educate them on the technical requirements that the shots they have in mind need,��� says Mohan. He says that directors who work with a bound script are needed to bring VFX costs down.
���Shankar is one of the few directors who locks his scripts down before going into production. He has been dabbling in VFX for long, and he understands that major changes in the last minute will result in months of pre-production work getting wasted,��� he explains.
TALENT DOESN���T COME CHEAP
As VFX supervisors and executive producers, these technicians need to hire the best talent that can do justice to the director���s vision, but the best talent does not come cheap. While 70% of VFX artists abroad work as freelancers, here, we have only now started to do so. ���We, Indians, like to have the safety net of a monthly salary, so most technicians go and work for a studio,��� explains Mohan.
Pradeep says that the pay for VFX artists depends on various factors ��� their talent, experience, the duration of the effects, the complexity of the shot, the budget of the film, and so on. A VFX supervisor for a small-budget film that requires three to four months of work might get paid `20 lakh, while someone working on a big-budget film that demands two years of their time might ask for anywhere between `1.5 crore and `2 crore based on their previous accomplishments.
BETTER TEACHING NEEDED
However, someone starting out in the industry in the lower levels might be paid only `10,000 per month, says Pradeep. ���This is one of the reasons why Indian VFX artistes are used by Hollywood studios mainly for technical jobs that are also labour-intensive. Many of our artistes still do not have the skill sets that foreign artists posses,��� he rues. But Ramesh, who has been working mainly on Hollywood films for the past 10 years, says that one of the chief reasons why artistes here do not get to work on crucial creative tasks is because the production and post-production work happens overseas. ���You need to be with the director and discuss and take decisions on projects. Even though we have technologies like Skype, being there is what will work in such circumstances,��� he says.
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The teaching methodology in our VFX schools is different schools abroad, feel these VFX experts. ���There, they teach the science behind the effects while here, most schools only teach the technical know-how. That is why there exists a vast difference between a trainee and production-ready artistes. You need to spend at least six months grooming them before giving them actual production work,��� concludes Ramesh.
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