Mumbai-based After Studio has just come out of it’s busiest schedule in days. Having done the VFX for two big-budget south movies, RGG2 and Spyder simultaneously, After had a lot in its plate but has successfully delivered the shots, and with elan, for the visuals are eye-catching and something that’ll leave you bewildered at the sight of it.
But pulling it all off was no easy by any means, as head of production Kunal Rasal explains the massive team of artists helmed by Dinesh solanki, Dipansu Halder, Sudhir Trivedi, Priyal Mhardolkar, Mukesh Rajpurohit and Vishwas Savanur required to put it together. He says, “We had a combined total of 150 artists working simultaneously on RGG2 as well as Spyder as both movies had a concurrent release dates, 14 and 23 October 2017 respectively.”
“We did it in a timespan of about a month,” he further added.
The Nagarjuna-starrer Raju Gari Gadhi 2 is a horror mystery that revolves around a resort which is haunted by a ghost. And After Studio delivered as many as seven visual effects sequences – the water sequences, a girl disintegrating into dust, the girl fading in thin air in front of the beach, the room transformation of a library to a house, footsteps on water effects, the paint sequence and the Tulsi shot. “Most of our VFX sequences in RGG 2 involved water simulation. So just to produce an apt look and feel of it, it took us 20-25 days. We did a total of 89 shots of water,” he stated.
In fact, that was reportedly the most challenging aspect of working in RGG2 VFX! “It involved a lot of things such as bubbles rising out of water, followed by a hint of smoke, then the water blast scene and then finally a person emerging out of it. As a result of all these small elements being executed, it was relatively more challenging than the rest.”
It isn’t easy sometimes to execute the director’s vision of the special effects, especially when asked to make modifications till the time perfection is reached. After Studio worked hand in glove with the director by making various modifications until perfection was achieved. Some of them involved seven to eight turnarounds, brightness and transparency adjustments and intensifying the blurriness. We also worked on newer additions to the shots every now and then and delivered the shots much to the satisfaction of the director.
But how were these challenges handled? “They were handed well! It was only during the floods this year that we faced problems and asked for extra days. But otherwise, we’ve finished everything abiding by the timelines provided.”
Spyder, starring Mahesh Babu, is a crime-thriller with futuristic gadgets and mass destructions. The VFX are gripping and came with its own fare share of difficulties. FX supervisor Deepanshu Haldar recalls, “The set was very small and we needed to extend it so as to show the complete ruins. It was difficult to add debris, the rods sneaking out and many other elements of the scene that were scattered around. Also challenging was to bring about the effects of debris falling.”
He further adds, “The after-blast scene had to look natural, so we did a few reconfigurations such as increased the track, added electrical sparks, added smoke and dust to bring realism to the ruins.”
“We also did the extension of the sea, we added cruise, eagle and that too was very complicated to incorporate into the scene as we had to time its flight right and also take care of the movement of its wings. The resort which the movie portrays is actually a populated area, but we have made it look like an empty one and instead added trees.”
On the technologies used to bring about the effects, he says, “We do not normally stick to any one particular technology as it depends on the requirements. There are certain software specialised for only specific type of effects, so they come into play when we are dealing such a scene.”
The artists in our team have all sorts of software and use them according to its requirements. For instance, the water simulation would need one type of software whereas those involving dust or snow would require some other. The skillset might be different, but the artists would be the same.”
Whilst the cinema-goers deliberate about the wonderment of the special effects in both movies, After Studio is already pre-occupied new projects. Rasal comments, “We are currently working on a south Indian movie PSPK25 (starring Pawan Kalyan) for which we are creating the whole city through CGI, whilst also worked on the tall buildings and showed an aerial view of the city. We have also created a CGI plane.”
“In Bollywood, we are currently working on a Kunal Kohli-film which involves some CGI effects too,” he concludes.