Artery’s visual effects teleport Shivaji to the present

If you thought that movies like The Matrix, The Dark Knight or Love Story 2050 and Drona can have visual effects (vfx) to tell a story, here is some thing which you will gape at with awe and wonder. After Hollywood and Bollywood, Read More">it’s now the turn of Marathi cinema to join the vfx bandwagon.Read More

If you thought that movies like The Matrix, The Dark Knight or Love Story 2050 and Drona can have visual effects (vfx) to tell a story, here is some thing which you will gape at with awe and wonder.

After Hollywood and Bollywood, it's now the turn of Marathi cinema to join the vfx bandwagon. Eros Entertainment's and Ashwami Films Mee Shivaji Raje Bhosle Boltoy (This is Shivaji Raje Bhosle speaking) - a modern-day fantasy of Shivaji Maharaj teleporting to the present and inspiring a Marathi manoos to take up cudgels against a corrupt polity - is playing across Mumbai theatres, and raking in good money owing to the film's topicality and the current multiplex strike.

The task of bringing Shivaji Maharaj (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his empire to life was made possible due to the vfx work done by Mumbai based Artery Animation helmed by Indian vfx stalwart Yunus Bukhari. Directed by debutante Santosh Manjrekar, the film also has acclaimed actor Sachin Khedekar as a middle class bank clerk, Dinkar Bhosale in an outstanding performance.

Speaking to Bollywood Hungama, Yunus Bukhari shared, "The work done in Mee Shivaji Raje Bhosle Boltoy (MSRBB) has been very challenging for us in many terms. Since it was a Marathi film, there were limitations according to a Marathi film's budget. Besides, there were constraints of making the shoot vfx-friendly. As the movie was shot on a mountain, it was very difficult for us to use chroma and other vfx supporting techniques."

It is said around Bollywood that Mahesh Manjrekar makes the hard stuff look easy. "Every time when we associate with Maheshji it's like a graduation for us because of his precision and accuracy. He is excellent in telling his stories on screen as he is brilliant in technical. Thanks to Santosh Manjrekar, who provided us with all the requirements and gave us the liberty of shooting as per our need. We were indeed happy with Pixion for its DI which made the film looks like mainstream," Yunus added.

In this exclusive case study, Bollywood Hungama brings you a shot-by-shot breakdown of the some of the best shots from another aamchi film.

Horseback around the city: “The fact that Shivaji Maharaj – the 17th century warrior and most revered hero in the history of Maharashtra – is the central character of the film made our task even challenging, ” said Yunus. Shivaji makes a grand entry in the film, Read More">atop his horse and accompanied by his associate maval.Read More

Horseback around the city:
"The fact that Shivaji Maharaj - the 17th century warrior and most revered hero in the history of Maharashtra - is the central character of the film made our task even challenging," said Yunus.

Shivaji makes a grand entry in the film, atop his horse and accompanied by his associate maval. From the grasslands of Western Maharashtra he comes trotting into Nariman Point, the financial centre of Mumbai. Since shooting in the traffic was not possible, Mahesh Manjrekar on horseback was shot against the chroma background and this was later composited with footage of the road.

War sequence, crowd multiplication: The march of Afzal Khan’s army was actually shot with fewer people. Recalling this as one of the most complicated shots, Yunus recalls, “Since we had to take a long shot, Read More">putting chroma in the background was not possible as we were shooting on a mountain in Panchgani. We could manageRead More

War sequence, crowd multiplication:
The march of Afzal Khan's army was actually shot with fewer people. Recalling this as one of the most complicated shots, Yunus recalls, "Since we had to take a long shot, putting chroma in the background was not possible as we were shooting on a mountain in Panchgani. We could manage to put chroma screen which was only 40 feet wide and 10 feet high. Also what was challenging for us - to roto out the bhalas which were there in soldiers' hand and to multiply them, for which we used matte painting at places."

"In the whole war sequence, we rotoed each and every character in every frame and multiplied it as per the shots' requirement, my team patiently rotoing multiple horses in every frame and that was quite interesting," he adds.

Sachin Khedekar’s speech: Sachin’s speech, where he addresses an angry crowd from his terrace, Read More">was actually shot in different layers. Sachin was separately shot against the chroma background while the remaining crowd was shot with a few people. These were later rotoed frame by frame and multiplied to generate a crowd scene as per theRead More

Sachin Khedekar's speech:
Sachin's speech, where he addresses an angry crowd from his terrace, was actually shot in different layers. Sachin was separately shot against the chroma background while the remaining crowd was shot with a few people. These were later rotoed frame by frame and multiplied to generate a crowd scene as per the director's requirement.

Fort recreated: An extensive flashback in the film tells the tale of Shivaji’s tiff with Afzal Khan. The sequence was shot at Prataphgarh Fort near Mahabaleshwar where the duo had actually met. Since the fort is currently in a dilapidated state, Read More">the vfx team took reference of the original ramparts and created a 3D modelRead More

Fort recreated:
An extensive flashback in the film tells the tale of Shivaji's tiff with Afzal Khan. The sequence was shot at Prataphgarh Fort near Mahabaleshwar where the duo had actually met. Since the fort is currently in a dilapidated state, the vfx team took reference of the original ramparts and created a 3D model from the scratch. These shots were later colour corrected to give appropriate shadows and tone to the fort and the flag.