MNIK Vfx: Creating Georgia in Mumbai

Shah Rukh Khan won over our hearts and minds with the Good Samaritan Rizwan Khan in MNIK by helping poor American villagers in their time of need. But who would have guessed that Karan Johar shot the whole flood sequence in Mumbai and made it seem like a quaint, rural village in Georgia? A far cry from yesteryear's films that used cardboard cut-outs for the sun and the moon, the art and carft of visual effects (vfx) has progressed by leaps and bounds enabling filmmakers to use computer technology to save on crucial time and money.

Directed by Karan Johar, the Shah Rukh - Kajol starrer My Name is Khan had some path breaking vfx executed by redchillies.vfx. The Mumbai based vfx house had a team of 100 artists working rigorously for three months to make the 380 vfx shots, and thus the film, a creative success.

Speaking to Bollywood Hungama, Haresh Hingorani (Harry), Production Director at redchillies.vfx shared, "For us, creating the flood sequence was the biggest challenge. Since we had to play with computer generated (CG) water and simulations, the sequence became even more complicated. Apart from flood sequence, there were several other chroma background shots, CG elements and background creation, which took time to complete."

In this exclusive case study, we bring you some of the exciting shots executed by redchillies.vfx, courtesy Fox Searchlight, Dharma Productions. Special thanks to the redchillies.vfx team - Haresh Hingorani, Arjun Mitra and Keitan Yadav.

Click on the thumbnails below to check out the shot breakdown: