Historical shows are a rarity on Indian television, what with the high production cost as well as the risk of achieving the targeted viewership. However, Hindi GECs are slowly breaking the mould of sticking to soap operas. The latest on the block is Colors’ upcoming show Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat that will be an hour long episode at the 9:00 pm slot from Monday through Friday.
Shot across Jaisalmer, Kerala, Film City and of course the huge set at Karjat, Ashoka will take viewers not just through the tale of the great king but also into a time and place long gone but achieved through the art of VFX.
Produced by Contiloe Productions, the yearlong show will have VFX being used for set extensions, crowd multiplication and animation along with 3D modeling. The trailers that have been released show a roaring lion which according to the makers is an element that will be present throughout the episodes. “The lion is fully CG and it’s the first time you will see it on Indian television. I would also say that even Indian cinema wouldn’t have showcased such good quality of CGI,” exults Contiloe CEO Abhimanyu Singh.
CG forms a good amount of the VFX including the lion, a wild boar and the cities of Pataliputra, Ujjain, Magadh. After having worked on historicals such as Maharana Pratap, Shivaji and Jhansi ki Rani, Abhimanyu says executing VFX for a TV show is different from film. After the script is written, a design for the shot is made which is then conveyed to the camera crew and director to achieve so as to allow space for CGI and VFX to be added in post production. “Since we have to deliver five episodes a week, we don’t have the luxury of time. So it is crucial to get the design right and minimise work while maximising the effectiveness,” says Abhimanyu.
The entire VFX has been executed by an in-house team of 12 people, some of who have assisted Contiloe in its previous shows.
The lion is in fact a character in the story and acts as a metaphor. “The challenge was not just to create a lion but also to add emotion to it. The CG element also makes rendering challenging as the lion has a lot of hair simulation,” expounds Contiloe creative head and VFX supervisor of Ashoka Deepak SV. A 20 spoke render farm from Autodesk was used for rendering while Adobe, Autodesk, Photoshop and Maya were used for delivering the VFX.
The ancient look and feel of the series was achieved through set extensions and added effect. VFX was used not only on the armour that the warriors wear but several weapons were created in CG as well. For war scenes, crowd multiplication was used to show the army. As of now about three episodes have been finished with VFX out of the total 10 odd episodes shot.
However Deepak says that the show is not heavily VFX oriented. “Usually VFX is used to give a surreal effect but that’s not our aim for Ashoka. We wanted it to look real so the goal was to achieve a realistic look. VFX or CGI work won’t be obvious to viewers,” he points out.
Abhimanyu says that they are trying to set a standard through the work they are putting in Ashoka. Going live on 2 February, the show has a big ensemble cast including Siddharth Nigam (Ashoka), Pallavi Subhash (Dharma), Sameer Dharmadhikari (Bindusara), Manoj Joshi (Chanakya), Tej Sapru (Seleucus Nicator), Suzanne Bernert (Helena), Sumit Kaul (Justin) and Ankita Sharma (Noor Khorasan).