How they recreated 70s in Action Replayy

This year Bollywood has churned out a plethora of movies utilising visual effects (VFX) as an effective instrument to enhance their stories. The latest to join the bandwagon is Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s Action Replayy. Based on a musical play, Read More">the flick brought in a retro Diwali for families who thronged PVR on a sparkling FridayRead More

This year Bollywood has churned out a plethora of movies utilising visual effects (VFX) as an effective instrument to enhance their stories. The latest to join the bandwagon is Vipul Amrutlal Shah's Action Replayy. Based on a musical play, the flick brought in a retro Diwali for families who thronged PVR on a sparkling Friday leaving the audiences in splits with its witty gags. The film left spectators blushing and beaming which was evident in the faces of those who ventured out of their thrones for munchies at intermission.

Vipul Shah, who also produced the caper, has an impressive cast line up where the plot of the film revolves around Bunty who tries to bring harmony to his conflicting parents, but with his frustrated attempts at patching them, the protagonist Aditya Roy Kapur takes a chance to travel back in time using his lover's grandfather's contraption to alter his parent's romantic history.

Pixion Studios, one of India's leading post-production houses, added shimmer to the 70s themed caper. Although the film demanded an astounding 800 VFX shots for enhancing the tale, Prasad Sutar - the VFX supervisor of the film and his team accomplished their mission through a rigid deadline of four months with finesse.

Talking about the vehicles in the films, Prasad says, "We also replaced the number plates on the cars that were visible. Since black license plates were more prevalent in that period of time."

Pixion fused its artillery in Chennai and Mumbai to execute one of the biggest science fiction feats churned out of Bollywood. The team digitally recreated scenes and enhanced the sets that depicted a psychedelic picture of a bygone era of the 70s. In this exclusive futuristic retrospective case study Bollywoodhungama's Philip Bode takes you on a journey through the VFX mechanics that made 'Time travel' possible in Action Replayy." Courtesy Viral Thakkar, Prasad Sutar, Ranadheer Reddy, Hariharan Suthan, Prince Chaurasia, Pankaj and Pixion Studios.

Pre production

VFX and post-production began in August 2010. 2500 man days were utilised both in Mumbai and Chennai, Due to the mammoth scale of work involved. 125 artistes were on board for this project. The facility in Chennai had the task of executing the time machine sequence. Rotoscopy was done for almost every shot in the film. To achieve their goal, the team watched many films pertaining to the 70s. The team also googled for 70s themed architecture, fortunately for the team, VT and Fort area in Mumbai haven't changed much.

Recreating VT As the scene was supposed to have the 70s look, lot of research was done on the elements that were needed to make the shot look real. The complications kept on increasing as the team worked on the shot, ultimately the CGI team created the road, Read More">trees and the buildings using a lotRead More

Recreating VT

As the scene was supposed to have the 70s look, lot of research was done on the elements that were needed to make the shot look real. The complications kept on increasing as the team worked on the shot, ultimately the CGI team created the road, trees and the buildings using a lot of 3D projections. The VT station was also created using projected textures. The crowd in the shot was shot as a separate plate and later composted in 3D space. We were very careful in matching the light as we had to integrate the already shot plate to the replaced environment and CGI elements.

360 degree shot of Bunty The most challenging shot of the film was the 360 degree trolley shot where the team had to replace the location. The production shot to a new location (VT Station). This shot included various complicated steps that are detailed rotoscopy of the character and the live-action foreground elements, Read More">Camera matchingRead More

360 degree shot of Bunty

The most challenging shot of the film was the 360 degree trolley shot where the team had to replace the location. The production shot to a new location (VT Station). This shot included various complicated steps that are detailed rotoscopy of the character and the live-action foreground elements, Camera matching of live action with CGI elements and realistic CGI environment made up for the scene. Anuj Sharma, who led the CGI team, executed the shot using the above steps.

Medley song The scene where Ranvijay and Akshay’s characters have a face off was shot at night using 500 Tungsten film, Victoria Terminus and Capitol Cinema sets were used for shooting the sequence which was made at Nitin Desai studios at Karjat in the outskirts of Mumbai. To enhance the shot, Read More">matte paintings and setRead More

Medley song

The scene where Ranvijay and Akshay's characters have a face off was shot at night using 500 Tungsten film, Victoria Terminus and Capitol Cinema sets were used for shooting the sequence which was made at Nitin Desai studios at Karjat in the outskirts of Mumbai. To enhance the shot, matte paintings and set replacements were utilise to enhance the narrative of the scenes. The crowd in the scene was shot on a separate layer. Later in the composite stage, the layers were merged in the 3D space to render the final output that was seamless.

Time Machine For the time machine scene consisted of around 200 shots that were divided in two sequences one at the start and the other at the end of the film. The time machine shot in live action, Read More">was from Nitin Desai Creations. The team at Pixion enhanced the credibility of the contraption in VFX.Read More

Time Machine

For the time machine scene consisted of around 200 shots that were divided in two sequences one at the start and the other at the end of the film. The time machine shot in live action, was from Nitin Desai Creations. The team at Pixion enhanced the credibility of the contraption in VFX. For this sequence, the team took one and a half months to accomplish the scenes. Particles were added in as well to make the scene look more authentic.

Talking about his experience of performing on chroma sets, Aditya Roy Kapur, who plays Bunty in the film said, "As an actor it's interesting and challenging to act on chroma at the same time because, you have to perform and imagine that a world exists behind you. Prasad and the DOP Sejal Shah guided me on my positive and negative spaces that I had on the chroma set which was of great help."

Wire Removal and Clean Ups

"We also had the mammoth task of wire removals and clean ups for about 177 shots in the film," concludes Ranadheer Reddy.