Visual effects breakdown on Son Of Sardaar

Ajay Devgn’s latest action comedy film Son of Sardaar, a lampoon on the Sikh community is being lauded as an all out masala entertainer which has managed to accrue approximately Rs.95 crores at the Indian Box office, right through the tenth day of its release. Interestingly, Read More">one half of the film was digitally augmented usingRead More

Ajay Devgn's latest action comedy film Son of Sardaar, a lampoon on the Sikh community is being lauded as an all out masala entertainer which has managed to accrue approximately Rs.95 crores at the Indian Box office, right through the tenth day of its release. Interestingly, one half of the film was digitally augmented using state of the art visual effects executed by Mumbai based Pixion Studios; former VFX supervisor from Pixion Studios, Navin Paul, sheds light on the post-production process of the film, "For this film we've used a horde of visual effects tools such as clean-ups, set-extensions, multiple plate-composites etc. For example the horse visible on screen was entirely modeled and made up using CG, with most of the film being shot in Punjab; the shooting schedule was spread across eighty days, and with this it was requisite that we design the shots swiftly." With over 3800 shots comprising the entire film, almost one hour of visual effects work was required to augment the narrative of the film, talking about the complexity on working on such a project Navin says, "Every scene we worked on had its own challenges such as Ajay Devgn standing on top of London's iconic Big-Ben, in terms of execution this scene was very tricky. Bollywood Hungama's Philip Bode gets Navin to take us on the behind the scenes visual effects making of, Son Of Sardaar.

“We shoot all the plates using 500FPS” The sequences that required speeding up and slowing down was shot using the Phantom camera, for instance the climatic sequence where we shoot all the plates using 500 frames per second (FPS) separately, Read More">Ajay Devgn’s live action plate was ramped to match up to 24 frames per second.Read More

"We shoot all the plates using 500FPS"
The sequences that required speeding up and slowing down was shot using the Phantom camera, for instance the climatic sequence where we shoot all the plates using 500 frames per second (FPS) separately, Ajay Devgn's live action plate was ramped to match up to 24 frames per second. The challenge in this shot was to make it look like the goons were actually being hit by Ajay, even though all the actors were shot separately. In order to get the look and feel of the shot right, we choreographed and rehearsed the scene thoroughly, with this every movement of the character was planned for camera layout purposes. Reference points were placed on seven sticks in place of the goons, these points ensured correct framing of the actor's swinging hand movement. There were no CG characters made to augment the scene, we accomplished this shot in ten days. In the online process, a 'camera shake' effect was added to accentuate the impact effect visible on screen.

“We would shoot using the requisite camera data format” The film was shot using various cameras where-in the data was stored in various formats. We shot using a combination of various cameras including the Go-Pro Camera. If a particular scene needs to be shot in a certain way to augment the narrative of the story, Read More">Read More

"We would shoot using the requisite camera data format"
The film was shot using various cameras where-in the data was stored in various formats. We shot using a combination of various cameras including the Go-Pro Camera. If a particular scene needs to be shot in a certain way to augment the narrative of the story, we would shoot using the requisite camera data format. So there would be no hindrances or limitations with the visual effects process, with the possibilities of using the various film formats at hand, it made the process easier to work on.

“The actions of the characters in the film imbibe a comical vibe clubbed with dangerous stunts” The London song sequence was shot at Mehboob studios in Mumbai, the entire sequence was shot against chroma background, Read More">in which we recreated the entire City behind the characters. The actions of the characters in the film imbibe aRead More

"The actions of the characters in the film imbibe a comical vibe clubbed with dangerous stunts"
The London song sequence was shot at Mehboob studios in Mumbai, the entire sequence was shot against chroma background, in which we recreated the entire City behind the characters. The actions of the characters in the film imbibe a comical vibe clubbed with dangerous stunts, the whole visual effects vision was to basically execute it using this theme in mind. The opening song of the film was shot with a lot of camera movements; some shots of the sequence were match-moved and tracked accordingly. With some camera shots the tracking process was difficult. Depending on the camera movements in the shots, the background was designed as an integral part of the song; we recreated the London's night skyline and replaced the chroma backgrounds with it.

“With over 3800 shots in the entire film, we had to work on chunks of the film” The film was shot at different schedules, the first shooting schedule started in mid-November last year with a VFX scene where in the climax of the film, Read More">Sonakshi professes her love for Ajay Devgn. The post-production process ofRead More

"With over 3800 shots in the entire film, we had to work on chunks of the film"
The film was shot at different schedules, the first shooting schedule started in mid-November last year with a VFX scene where in the climax of the film, Sonakshi professes her love for Ajay Devgn. The post-production process of the film was taking place with the shooting process simultaneously, because of the magnitude of work involved. We received the edit by the first week of January this year from which we started work on. With over 3800 shots in the entire film, we had to work on chunks of the film alongside the production process. We were working on the post-production process right until the end; we delivered the last shot on October 25.