Deconstructing the VFX of Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani

Emerging as one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani has cracked the Box Office wide open with its huge collections. Contributing to one of the key packaging aspects of the film is the post-production phase which was executed by Prime Focus, Read More">one of India’s most prominent post-production studios. Talking aboutRead More

Emerging as one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani has cracked the Box Office wide open with its huge collections. Contributing to one of the key packaging aspects of the film is the post-production phase which was executed by Prime Focus, one of India's most prominent post-production studios. Talking about the magnitude of visual effects work involved, chief creative director and co-founder of Prime Focus, Merzin Tavaria says, "It's more in the details rather than utilizing flashy vfx which is used in an action film. The work involved was more of a blending challenge going by the narrative, where the visual effects were just a milieu. For the song 'Balam Pichkari', we infused subtle visual effects such as crowd multiplications as it was only to add more power to the film's narrative." Bollywood Hungama's Philip Bode gets Merzin to talk about the subtle visual effects that augmented the narrative of Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani.

“Nowadays journey shots in a train or car are a standard requirement from filmmakers, although Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani was shot quite well by cinematographer V. Manikandan. The way it was shot helped us with the correct lighting on the actor’s faces, interactive lighting of the background coming inside in the car shots, Read More">and blendingRead More

"Nowadays journey shots in a train or car are a standard requirement from filmmakers, although Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani was shot quite well by cinematographer V. Manikandan. The way it was shot helped us with the correct lighting on the actor's faces, interactive lighting of the background coming inside in the car shots, and blending of glass giving the shots more credibility. We made background replacements on other shots as well where we had to augment close ups of the mountains, because the mountains didn't exist actually and was embedded in through multi-layered composites. We had subtle elements integrated to enhance the set, such as flames were added to lamps in the foreground where you cannot actually make out that CG was incorporated into it. It's been awhile since we worked on a vibrant film such as Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani and like I said it was great working with Ayan again."

“The deer shot in the film was obviously one of the trickiest to achieve, as it was not defined until the end if we should use a deer, or something else. The thought of infusing a deer, Read More">was brought up as a requirement a long time back but we were still looking for the rightRead More

"The deer shot in the film was obviously one of the trickiest to achieve, as it was not defined until the end if we should use a deer, or something else. The thought of infusing a deer, was brought up as a requirement a long time back but we were still looking for the right place to find the deer. Apart from seeking out the requisite deer plates, it was crucial to blend the animal in a snow background with the deer paws sunk inside a few inches of snow. The deer plate was shot separately with a different lighting in Thailand, with one plate being sunny and the other with night like lighting required that would be cast on the snow. This was a fun thing to execute; blending was a challenge here as we didn't create any CGI layers as such."

“We’ve been involved with the film right from the production phase which started over a year back, although the post-production work on the film began only four months back. We had about 70 artists working on the film, where we had a standard pipeline meted out for the project, Read More">as it was not necessary toRead More

"We've been involved with the film right from the production phase which started over a year back, although the post-production work on the film began only four months back. We had about 70 artists working on the film, where we had a standard pipeline meted out for the project, as it was not necessary to infuse out internal tech and the pipeline that we incorporate for VFX heavy films. Reupal Rawal was the VFX supervisor of Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani, and this is her second film with Ayan after Wake Up Sid. The rapport shared with a director is always critical in achieving the kind look and feel of the shots. The brief of the film is that there are no visual effects! Going by the vibrant narrative of Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani, the film does not require any flashy or glaring VFX to compliment the film's storyline. The visual effects used in the film are made only to, hype up the narrative and not infuse any VFX heavy material into it. It was employed to pump up production related work for the film."