Deconstructing the VFX of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag : Bollywood News

We used a 5 Camera setup to shoot crowd plates

In order to replicate the crowds at the stadiums, we went to Delhi and shot reference plates using 8 different Red Epic digital cameras. These were all shot completely flat, in which we used zoom lenses and setup 5 different angles with a crowd of about 200 people sitting closely. We kept shuffling the crowd to reduce monotony and repeat the crowds in the entire stadium. Using Autodesk Max we setup a procedural crowds system. Since we had a moving camera, it was not possible to have the live action crowds on all the plates as it would look 2Dish and flat. As a result, a CG crowd system was setup, where-in we procured references of the texture that would go on the models and applied the same onto the CG crowd. The CG generated crowds would also be waiving their respective country flags which was also made using CGI. WE made use of sprites for crowds that were further behind in the stadium. We shot the characters against chroma backgrounds from 3 different angles, and composited it on a sprite which are these cards used in a 3D space. These sprites have the characters mapped on to these cards removing the green screen from the live action plates. The crowd that was closest to the camera consisted of live action plates, the middle crowds were CGI plates.