Deconstructing the VFX of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag : Bollywood News

We carried out some animatics as references and showed the director quite a few tests

There was one particular scene that required meticulous planning as it was a crucial point in the film, the scene was going from the present to the precedent era. Rakesh wanted it seamless in which the camera in the train showing people talking about how Milkha Singh actually came from Pakistan. Thereafter the camera starts moving out of the train, showing the environment outside then settling on to the rooftop of the train- where-in a younger Milkha was sitting amongst refugees coming in from Pakistan during the partition period. We carried out some animatics as references and showed the director quite a few tests as far as environment is concerned. This was because we had to merge the live action environment onto the CG environment. This was a nostalgic shot that would take us back a few years with a different environment in tow, so it was important that the transition between the cameras were not jerky. The exterior shots of the train were augmented with a CG environment since it was mired with barren lands with trees scantily scattered. Rakesh was really happy with what we put forth on the table, where-in we went ahead with augmenting the scene digitally. In order to execute this process, we conducted a digital stitched between the live action camera plate in the train - and the transition into the CG exterior of the train. Thereafter we had to stitch the shots the other way around from CG to live action. This was a very complicated shot as far as planning was concerned, there was a lot of pre-visualization done and the plates were shot accordingly. Apart from the digital stitching sequence, a lot of research was conducted airplanes of the 40s and 50s era. In one particular shot where Milkha goes to Pakistan, there was a Dakota C-47 plane which was required to release leaflets. We got our references and blueprints of the plane through the internet and remodeled the airplane in CG with falling CGI leaflets. We also did research on the kind of airplanes Pakistan had back then as well, this was basically part of the pre-production phase that went into making the visual effects for the film.