Deconstructing VFX of ABCD

“I do not know how they did it, but they did a great job” Talking about some of the gargantuan work involved, Viral says, “In one of the sequences from the film, Remo wanted to show a stadium with around 15, 000 spectators cheering. This was certainly one of the most challenging segments, Read More">since all ofRead More

"I do not know how they did it, but they did a great job"
Talking about some of the gargantuan work involved, Viral says, "In one of the sequences from the film, Remo wanted to show a stadium with around 15,000 spectators cheering. This was certainly one of the most challenging segments, since all of this was around the 3D stereo space on screen. We had only 300 junior artists on set, which comprised of the crowd, initially we decided of shooting crowd plates on a different day but this was not possible due to time constraints. So I assured Remo to go ahead with shooting the scene, which was shot at floor 5 at Film City in Mumbai. With about 100 odd lights on stage, we had the task of maintaining the lights and replacing the chroma elements with CG." Talking about the VFX work involved, Remo says, "It was not possible to garner such a massive crowd for the scene. So we employed CG to procure the desired crowd multiplication visible in the final shots. I do not know how they did it, but they did a great job."

“I was afraid of the post-production process” In order to achieve the crowd multiplications, the CGI and compositing team achieve with generating the CG crowd systems in 25 days. The behavioral pattern of the crowd was made to look different in all the shots. Talking about the feat, Viral says, Read More">“It was requisite to animateRead More

"I was afraid of the post-production process"
In order to achieve the crowd multiplications, the CGI and compositing team achieve with generating the CG crowd systems in 25 days. The behavioral pattern of the crowd was made to look different in all the shots. Talking about the feat, Viral says, "It was requisite to animate the digital crowd which would be, akin to the foreground live action crowd, and this was all achieved in the 3D stereoscopic space. We ensured that the stadium made would encompass the right depth in stereo. Talking about the challenges with managing the massive post-production work Remo says, "I was not afraid of the shooting process as much as I was afraid of the post-production process, because there was just too much of work involved. One of the main aspects was to ensure that the VFX elements created would sync in with the 3D stereoscopic footage, I think we achieved this seamlessly."

“The foreground characters were required to be placed according to the depth we would make” With ABCD shot in stereoscopic 3D, the visual effects team at Pixion knew the technicalities involved with going ahead with the VFX process. By recording all the relevant details such as, camera and lens data, Read More">inter ocular distance etc. IndyRead More

"The foreground characters were required to be placed according to the depth we would make"
With ABCD shot in stereoscopic 3D, the visual effects team at Pixion knew the technicalities involved with going ahead with the VFX process. By recording all the relevant details such as, camera and lens data, inter ocular distance etc. Indy who was the stereographer of the film, worked closely with viral to ensure the final depth of the visuals was locked. Talking about shooting, the VFX sections of the film, Viral says, "This had to be visualized, because we were shooting the segments against chroma backdrops, and the depth of the foreground characters were required to be placed according to the depth we would make in CG. A lot of research and planning went into achieving the desired depth, sometimes this would not match according to the foreground live action plates, but eventually we achieved what Remo wanted."

“It should not look like any visual effects work was involved” Diverting from the monotony of traditional filmmaking, Remo decided to shoot ABCD in 3D as the ace choreographer turned director wanted to give spectators more than just an eyeful. Talking about adopting the latest fad in filmmaking, Remo says, Read More">“We see dances in outRead More

"It should not look like any visual effects work was involved"
Diverting from the monotony of traditional filmmaking, Remo decided to shoot ABCD in 3D as the ace choreographer turned director wanted to give spectators more than just an eyeful. Talking about adopting the latest fad in filmmaking, Remo says, "We see dances in out everyday lives, I wanted to give viewers more than just a dance film, where it feels like that they are immersed in the film." Considering that ABCD is India's first dance related film, it was extremely crucial for the makers that there are no barriers to communication with augmenting the visuals. Talking about briefing the visual effects team, Remo says, "The first thing I mentioned was that it should not look like any visual effects work was involved, the effects were to compliment the film as if it was shot live and not enhanced digitally."

Mumbai based post-production house, Pixion Studios has delivered the visual effects process for Remo Dsouza’s latest film ABCD- Any Body Can Dance. Produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur, the 3D stereoscopic film encompassed a gargantuan amount of VFX work. Viral Thakkar, Read More">CG VFX head led a team of around sixty artists to accomplishRead More

Mumbai based post-production house, Pixion Studios has delivered the visual effects process for Remo Dsouza's latest film ABCD- Any Body Can Dance. Produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur, the 3D stereoscopic film encompassed a gargantuan amount of VFX work. Viral Thakkar, CG VFX head led a team of around sixty artists to accomplish the feat in a mere 25 days. Talking about the project Viral said, "We had about only 25 days to work on a horde of elements such as modeling, crowd multiplications, animation simulations and various other VFX elements. We have incorporated extensive CG work for the film, although we have seen a few stereoscopic films here in India, none has stood out more prominently than ABCD. Bollywood Hungama's Philip Bode gets Viral and Remo to shed light on, 3D stereoscopic filmmaking, the intricacies behind the VFX and the challenges of visually augmenting the narrative of Any Body Can Dance.