A visual magic

VFX and animation are gaining new grounds in Sandalwood and now most of the films are using it to garner eyeballs. The latest Kannada movie to join the bandwagon is ‘The Villain’, which is directed by Prem and has actors Shivarajkumar and Sudeep playing prominent roles.

V S Elangovan, visual effects supervisor of Jupiter CG Studios, who is working on VFX for ‘The Villain’, notes that today, on an average, most of the movies he is working on have about 40 to 45 minutes of computer graphics.

“There has definitely been an  increase in the demand for the usage of animation and VFX in Kannada movies. Initially, these were used mainly in songs and fights. Now directors have a clear understanding of computer graphics and it is used extensively to enhance storytelling,” says Elangovan, who has worked on Kannada films such as ‘Simhadhri Simha’, ‘Jogi’, ‘Rama Shama Bhama’, ‘Aaptamitra’, ‘Sarathi’, ‘Bhajarangi’ and most recently ‘Shivalinga’.

Going into the details of how VFX and animation are used, Elangovan says, “If there is a sequence where the hero fights with a tiger, we can shoot the hero separately and create the tiger by use of animation. These will then be merged together in a compositing software. If the script demands a sequence with a crowd of 10,000 people, then using a crowd multiplication technique is more  economical than actually shooting with the crowd.”

“One of the earlier Kannada films to extensively use computer graphics for songs is ‘Kotigobba’ in 2001. The movie had about eight minutes of computer graphics and went on to become a big hit. One of the main reasons for its success was the graphics,” says Elangovan.

Subheesh Ramanath, another a visual effects producer, agrees that the use of VFX in films is slowly gaining ground. “VFX is a very expensive process because of the high cost of skilled VFX artistes and the high-end software and hardware. It’s a creative process and sometimes the actual manhours for execution of a sequence could be double the estimation. However, today directors acknowledge that it has become an integral part of filmmaking and that has led to a huge demand for VFX in movies,” he says.

Another VFX expert in the Kannada film industry is Jai Mangal Sharma. He points out that the success of ‘Baahubali’ has inspired many a producer to encourage the  use of VFX in films. “Any producer would love to make this kind of product and get similar success. The gains are high,” says Jai, who worked with Disney before moving to Bengaluru a few years ago and has used VFX shots in Kannada films like ‘Paraari’ and ‘Aatagara’.

Jai feels that VFX gives one the freedom to give form to imagination. “Use of VFX and animation allows you to create exactly what you have in mind. You can’t normally achieve this without use of the extra effects,” he adds.