The visual magic in Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic 
By Screen Weekly, July 4, 2008 - 13:58 IST
The Assignment
Kunal Kohli was quite impressed with the National Award-winning VFX work done by Prasad EFX for Krrish directed by Rakesh Roshan. As his movie Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic (TPTM) involved plenty of effects and exploring the fantasy world with children, he felt that Prasad EFX was the ideal choice and approached us to supplement his ideas.
The Efforts
The movie by virtue of its storyline required a lot of VFX. There are three main songs in this movie that were fully loaded with VFX shots. There was a variety of 3D modeling and animation done in this movie. From creating animal characters that included dolphins, dinosaur, seagulls, Ninja spiders, lobsters sea-horse and birds to models of an armoured man, cars, cycles, a NASA jet, the sun, the moon etc. All these 3D models were designed and animated to match live action footage. We worked closely with the production team, planned and story-boarded the visual effect shots in the movie 4 to 5 months before shooting the film. Every detail was carefully evaluated. Neil Cunningham, the VFX supervisor from London worked closely with a project team of more than 60 specialists from Prasad EFX to bring out technically-striking VFX sequences. Kunal and Neil had involved themselves from the pre-visualisation stage. The artists and producers in each department-tracking, design, animation and compositing worked together to produce the VFX.
The Highlights
We had to design and build 'Heaven' and the surrounding cloud environment entirely in CG. The concept had to be futuristic and realistic. A huge blue matte set was erected in the studio for these song sequences. Lots of research went into adopting the latest technology to create a photo-realistic 3D cloud environment. The heaven song was created in a 3D cloud environment. Different cloud backgrounds were shaped for this song with additional 3D elements. Complex wire removals and compositing work were executed to add intensity all the images and shot. Some of the interesting shots were Rani Mukherjee coming cycling down a rainbow to earth, God's conference table with digital displays, cloud sofa and seasons-changing shots. The film had lots of particle effects and fluid dynamics. The set of the heaven sequence was designed and created completely in 3D except for the characters.
The Execution
The execution process required tremendous calculation to achieve credibility. The whole heaven sequence song was shot in a span of seven days. The Rani Mukherjee cycling down a rainbow to earth sequence was one of the most interesting shots. In the pre-production stage Rani Mukherjee was shot in complete blue matte. She was sitting on a elevated area in a bicycle without wheels. The real world camera shot her in different camera angles and speed. In post- production, every other aspect was worked on by Prasad EFX. One of the special shots in the heaven song is the seasons-change sequence - the concept showing "The power of the changing seasons" in the form of spring, autumn and winter. The director, DOP, choreographer and others in the production team had to know exactly what was happening around as the whole set was in blue matte. So the pre-visualisation story board from the Prasad EFX team helped the TPTM team to understand the sequences and it's post production effect in detail. HDRI chromeball lighting was used to create the actual lighting during production which made the post production work more accurate.
Screen India
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"In TPTM, Saif-Rani have surpassed their previous performances" - Kunal Kohli
