The film has done well at the box office with audiences lapping up the tale of three friends in Gujarat and their relationship in times of strife. Produced by UTV Spotboy, helmed by director Abhishek Kapoor, it has Prime Focus as the third partner. The film is based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life.”
Visual Effects:Talking about Prime Focus’ association, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director, Merzin Tavaria said, “‘Kai Po Che!’ marks Prime Focus’ second collaboration with UTV Spotboy after ‘No One Killed Jessica’ and the first with director Abhishek Kapoor. ‘Kai Po Che’ is a realistic story around three Ahmedabad boys – Ishaan, Omi and Govind – who are trying to make their mark in India in the early 2000’s, so all our efforts were focused on creating visuals that complement the storyline of the film whilst bringing out the authenticity of the visuals. It was very important for the team to understand the sensitivity of the film and design the sequences accordingly. The team worked very efficiently with the director and we are extremely happy to have matched his expectations.”
Prime Focus delivered around 400 shots in just one month with a team of more than 80 artists across its facilities in Mumbai and Hyderabad. The VFX for the movie was overseen by Prime Focus Sr. VFX Supervisor Reupal Rawal who says: “We were given the freedom to conceive, design and build some extraordinary visual effects sequences. We created expansive digital environments and a variety of elemental effects for the film, punctuating nearly every scene with live performance to create VFX in over 400 shots. It was an incredible experience working with a brilliant craftsman like Abhishek Kapoor.”
Below are details of some of the challenging shots executed by the VFX team for the movie:
Under-developed area:Ishaan, Omi and Govind are looking for a place to start a training academy with the hope of producing India’s next sporting superstars. They required a place which was unkempt – but while shooting on location at a sportsground, it seemed too neat and did not fulfill the requirements of the story. This is where VFX played an important role: in the post production, Prime Focus recreated a completely under-developed sportsground effect with barren land, dried grass, shrubs, and weeds making it look like a dump yard. All this was very meticulously done with the help of 2.5 D Matte Painting and CG. To enhance it further, pigeons were added, flying off as Ishaan opens the door.
Meethi Boliyaan song:In the song ‘Meethi Boliyaan’ the VFX work involved wire clean-ups, adding a rainbow, beautifying the sky and adding clouds throughout the song, making it visually stunning. In one of the shots, Omi is shown doing a freefall from the top of the fort into the sea. From Omi’s point of view we see Ishaan and Govind diving into the sea. Originally the shots of the fort from the opposite direction were flat; the director and DOP wanted to design the shot of the fort surrounded by water making it visually appealing. The fort was recreated with detailed matte painting adding moss and giving a worn out feel, widening the magnification and added water to give a low angle perspective. Sunlight, sky, clouds and a beautiful sun flare shimmering on the water were added to seamlessly match the shots.
Earthquake sequence:
The storyline reflects the incident and calamities of the earthquake that occurred in the year 2000 in Gujarat. VFX was used as an important technique to bring in the impact of the earthquake and its aftermath. The earthquake sequence starts with Govind getting up due to the tremors in his house. After rescuing his mother he runs towards the New Ahmedabad city through the Ellis Bridge. On reaching New Ahmedabad, he comes across mayhem and destruction in the streets.
This entire sequence was completely crafted in VFX by adding dust and debris falling in Govind’s house, the wall clock shattering, cracks appearing on the wall and huge destruction in the by-lanes outside his residence. The broken and damaged bridge where Govind takes a big leap was also created in 3D, ensuring that a feeling of depth and danger was established. The background of New Ahmedabad city was created to establish the two different locations.
After reaching New Ahmedabad Govind sees a collapsed Mall. The brief from the client was to make the mall look damaged following the earthquake. The collapsed mall that appears in this sequence was a complete CGI creation. To achieve the required look and feel the team worked on various concepts for the mall which covered every little detail. The impact was supposed to be dramatic enough to quicken your pulse and make you widen your eyes at the shocking visual. Additionally the mall required being two storey’s high, but the original shot had only one storey. Using the original plates shot, the team recreated the mall from scratch with the help of 2.5D and 3D dynamics. The addition of rubble, concrete slabs falling and dust creation was also done with the help of VFX.
Ali’s House sequence:After the massive earthquake, Ishaan goes to meet Ali at his house. Ali’s house is almost totaled to the ground. The look of the house had to be worked on in the post. CG cracks and dust elements had to be added to bring in the continuity to the sequence. The CG slab was created as well, which was about to fall on Ali and his mother.
CG Ball sequences:The movie shows Ishaan teaching a young Ali cricket. Through various sequences, the movie shows in a progressive order how Ali develops and sharpens his skills as a batsman. It would be difficult to shoot Ali’s force and caliber during the training session, so the director Abhishek decided to create a CG ball and add it throughout the film. All the nuances of the cricket ball were taken care of by the VFX team, and finessed to look aesthetically perfect.
CG Kite sequence: T he kite flying festival has a major significance in moving the storyline forward. While the kite flying festival is on, the characters Omi and Ishaan are shown flying kites and getting into a competitive mood. This entire setup wasn’t feasible to showcase while shooting, as kites would never do the required movement as per story. Hence VFX was added to bring out the story of flying kites, to getting aggressive, entangling and then to one getting cut in the kite fight. Additionally, in order to make the festival look grand and bring in the festive feeling, CG Kites of different colors were added into the backdrop also.
Ishaan’s death sequence: This is the most sensitive scene when Omi shoots Ishaan, and the director had a very specific requirement as to how this would happen on screen: first, the bullet had to be seen hitting Ishaan, followed by blood spurting where it strikes him. Finally, the blood had to spread all over his T-shirt soaking it. This was a very serious scene and had to be delicately handled in VFX.
Climax sequence (Ali’s debut match): The movie’s climactic sequence – a memorable match set in the stadium – was critical to the storyline as it shows Ali’s debut match. There were two important VFX requirements which had to be taken into account. Firstly, the crowd multiplication cheering to Ali’s brilliant performance and secondly the first ball that Ali hits for ‘four’.
The basic plates for the crowd multiplication work were shot with a limited number of people, which were later multiplied in post to bring out the huge feel of the stadium. Then the ball being bowled, hit, and going across the boundary was also animated. The VFX at the climax resulted in a stunning sequence and matched the expectations of the director.
The Prime Focus team also worked on various seamless shots including beautifying the dream sequence between Govind and Vidya , set extensions to portray the refugee camp, day for night in the temple sequence, adding the gulal (red) color to bring out the celebration mood, innumerable photo frames and PIP (picture in picture) sequences especially for showcasing cricket matches on TV, lights added to the Diwali diyas, CG marble travelling from Ali’s room, multiple chroma shots and many more hidden VFX.
DI: “The movie ‘Kai Po Che!’ is one of a kind and it was great to work on a movie which is not a run-of-the-mill Bollywood movie – where the scope for subtle artistic and creative freedom is usually missing. The main idea behind the grade was to bring out the realism and this has been treated subtly,” said Rohan Desai, DI Head and Chief Colourist. “Apart from grading, there was a large amount of pre-production work done on the movie by us for DOP Anay Goswamy – right from the choice of the camera to discussing the look and scene references. The discussions were extensive and finally the RED epic camera was chosen for reasons such as its size, since Anay had to shoot in tough circumstances and tight locations for which he preferred the small size and weight of the RED Epic. This was however not a technical preference for us simply because he was shooting in the peak of summer and the Epic does have its limitations with highlights. We then worked on our internal pipeline to accommodate his preference and still gave him the best results possible. I believe Anay is one of the finest DOPs around and we will be seeing some great work from him in the future.”
“Around 90 percent of the movie is shown as a flashback sequence which required a golden-brown treatment, whereas a very natural look was maintained for the present situations,” commented Senior Colourist Ashirwad Hadkar. “As DOP Anay has done a brilliant job of capturing the right look for the movie, this helped me enhance the overall look while grading. Since the movie revolves around Gujarat, it was very important to bring about the authenticity of the premise of the location around which the story revolved. As most parts of the movie are shot in Gujarat, it wasn’t possible to maintain a unanimous look while shooting due to climatic changes.
The idea was to enhance the colors in such a way that the DI subtly blends with the storyline of the movie and is not noticeable.”
In order to achieve a synonymous color flow for these sequences, each frame was graded and then matched seamlessly to maintain a consistent look throughout the movie. The pre-earthquake sequences were graded with a yellowish brown look to bring about the happiness and friendship between the characters, whereas for the post earthquake sequences, the look of the movie changes to grungy and rusty to bring out the problems faced by the characters.
Special care was taken while grading the riot sequences in order to bring out distinctive colors that represent the different communities. Additionally, a very dusty and fiery look was maintained for the cricket sequences. The movie has three songs, namely Manja, Meethi Boliyaan and Shubhaarumbh and each of them was treated uniquely to correspond perfectly well with the themes of the song.
“DOP Anay was very particular about the sharpness and texture, hence, the Red Epic camera worked well for him because of its 5K Resolution and that helped me while grading to get the raw and realistic look for the film. Also Anay had set a metadata in the camera as per the requirement of his scene which helped me immensely while grading,” said Ashirwad.
“’Kai Po Che!’ is a special film of the kind that tends to draw a loyal following. In this case, the film has managed to capture a large audience that reaches around the world. The film has already been applauded at the Berlin Film Festival, and we look forward it reaching an even larger audience.” he added.