Deconstructing the VFX of Bangistan

Talking about the challenges in achieving the overall look of the film, Prashant says, “The major challenge was the opening sequence of the film which explained the history of Bangistan. Karan had as certain look and feel in his mind, Read More">so a lot of concept designs were made and shared before we locked what wasRead More

Talking about the challenges in achieving the overall look of the film, Prashant says, "The major challenge was the opening sequence of the film which explained the history of Bangistan. Karan had as certain look and feel in his mind, so a lot of concept designs were made and shared before we locked what was needed. It was encouraging to have Karan involved in the VFX process, he's easy going, approachable and witty which made it real fun to work with him. Karan has a good understanding of visual effects and where it should be utilized. Currently we're in the midst of Raja Krishna's Airlift and will start with Bejoy Nabiar's Wazir in the near future."

Riva Digital has a core team of about 60 people working around the clock to achieve the VFX, pre-production and planning was taken care of before the principal shoot of the film. Talking about the various VFX tasks achieved Prashant says, Read More">“The climax sequence required major rotoscoping work for crowd multiplication and also had majorRead More

Riva Digital has a core team of about 60 people working around the clock to achieve the VFX, pre-production and planning was taken care of before the principal shoot of the film. Talking about the various VFX tasks achieved Prashant says, "The climax sequence required major rotoscoping work for crowd multiplication and also had major match-moving challenges as well. Karan felt that the amount of crowd they shot in Poland was not adding up to the grandness of the climax, so we decided to go ahead with crowd multiplications and shot crowd plates in Mumbai against a chroma background. As these shots had major camera movements, there was heavy match-moving and tracking involved to achieve this using Boujou."

The films location required lots enhancements to compliment the visuals of the film, talking about VFX being used to enhance the locations Prashant says, “We did employ lots of matte paintings in the Benaras sequences (South Bangistan), Read More">Karan wanted high snow-clad mountains from north Bangistan to be visible in the sequence. So the entire BenarasRead More

The films location required lots enhancements to compliment the visuals of the film, talking about VFX being used to enhance the locations Prashant says, "We did employ lots of matte paintings in the Benaras sequences (South Bangistan), Karan wanted high snow-clad mountains from north Bangistan to be visible in the sequence. So the entire Benaras sequence with Pulkit needed extensive background replacements. The film also included a popular food chain called FC- Donalds as a gag in north Bangistan, so in some scenes where Riteish meets 'Abbaji' - we had to create sign boards using matte paintings and CG to enhance the authenticity for the look of the north region of Bangistan."

Talking about the scope of work involved in the film, Prashant says, “We’ve had about 602 shots which required extensive VFX for the film, Read More">apart from the opening one minute CG animated sequence. This was something totally new for us as we’ve been doing live action VFX films throughout and working on a full CGRead More

Talking about the scope of work involved in the film, Prashant says, "We've had about 602 shots which required extensive VFX for the film, apart from the opening one minute CG animated sequence. This was something totally new for us as we've been doing live action VFX films throughout and working on a full CG animation interface was challenging and exciting for the team as well. I was involved since the beginning of the shooting process which began in September 2014 right up until we wrapped up the last VFX shot in July 2015. Although the VFX on the floors started only in May 2015, which gave us only 2 months to achieve the entire VFX of the film."

While Riva Digital maintains that their systematic pipeline employed remained the same for all their films, special efforts were taken to execute a one minute sequence which involved extensive CG. Talking about tailoring certain aspects of their pipeline of their film Prashant says, Read More">“The CG animated opening sequence of the film required a totally differentRead More

While Riva Digital maintains that their systematic pipeline employed remained the same for all their films, special efforts were taken to execute a one minute sequence which involved extensive CG. Talking about tailoring certain aspects of their pipeline of their film Prashant says, "The CG animated opening sequence of the film required a totally different approach from what we did earlier. Our CG and compositing team had to mold themselves to deliver something which was not in their daily scope of work. With this we made major changes in all the departments right from the animation, lighting to the compositing sections to achieve the CG opening sequence."