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Indian VFX Artists Making Hollywood Films Happen

Here’s a trivia – let’s see if you can solve it. What do Hollywood blockbusters like Shrek, Gravity, Avatar, Maleficent, How to Train Your Dragon, and Interstellar have in common? If you haven’t cracked it yet, let us not keep you in suspense anymore. All these movies and many more have visual effects artists and animators from India.

Yes, famous VFX artists in India and animators are in huge demand in Hollywood.

More and more Hollywood studios are turning to the vast pool of young specialists in India to work on the visual effects of their movies. The gravity-defying, awe-inspiring sequences that seem to explode on screen are actually created halfway across the world in a studio in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, or Chennai.

Impressive body of work

If your heart almost jumped out of your mouth when James Bond skydive from a plane or skied on dangerously tall mountains in Skyfall, you have a group of Indian visual effects artists to thank (or blame)! It was a large team of special effects artists in Bangalore that worked on these jaw-dropping sequences in the 007 film.

Source: http://www.awn.com/

Similarly, if you were left wondering how could a tiger actually be sitting on a boy’s lap while watching Life of Pi, the sequence was created using special effects in a studio here in India. The film, in fact, was replete with many such awe-inspiring visual effects for which it deservedly won the Oscars. As many as 200 scenes from mega blockbuster Avatar were worked on by an Indian VFX company.

Source: https://www.fxguide.com

Next time you watch the insanely popular television series Game of Thrones and say to yourself, “Man, those dragons look realistic,” know that these fire-breathing creatures were brought to life by one of the many Indian VFX companies.

The point we are trying to make is that India is emerging as the undisputed leader of the animation and visual effects industry. According to data shared by a FICCI-KPMG report on the country’s media and entertainment industry, India’s animation industry generated a whopping Rs 4,490 crore in revenue in 2014 – an increase of 13% from the previous year.

If you thought that was good news, wait till you hear this. The industry is all set to double in size to Rs 9,550 crore within five years.

Change in trend

Post production work coming to India is actually nothing new. In the past, most of the post production work for Hollywood movies used to be done at studios in LA. While they got the good stuff (read primary shots), studios in India used to get the leftovers (read secondary shots).

However, things have changed considerably over the last few years. Indian studios are now being entrusted with creating visual effects for important shots. It’s not entirely uncommon for them to receive the entire visual effects work for a film either.

Another change in trend is the presence of Western animation and visual effects artists in Indian post production companies as opposed to earlier when mostly experts from India used to travel to Hollywood to work in their studios.

According to an Animation Xpress article published earlier this year, India has nearly 300 animation, 40 VFX and 85 game development studios with more than 15,000 professionals working for them and Hollywood is knocking on their doors.

The cost factor

Cost is a huge factor driving this trend. The low labour cost India has driven many cost-conscious Hollywood studios to outsource the expensive digital effects work to companies here. Experts suggest that labor costs in India are one-10^thof what they are in Hollywood.

But cost alone is not the only reason why Hollywood studios are shifting their visual effects work to the country. In India, they have found an immensely talented pool of computer and graphic experts who are well versed with the Western culture and way of life, speak fluent English, and have done some amazing and award-winning work in the past.

So, while there is a definite cost advantage of working with Indian post production companies for Hollywood, there is also an assurance that the skilled artists in the country would produce highest quality results.

Range of work

The digital effects work coming to India ranges from the really creative and powerful to more labor-intensive and mundane tasks. While on the surface, a certain task may look superior to the other, both are equally important in the final outcome.

So, for every Indian company that wins an Oscar and worldwide recognition for its visual effects work, there’s another one that is quietly performing low-key tasks like wire removal, rotoscope, keying and like wire removal, rotoscope, keying and match moving wire removal, rotoscope, keying, etc. in a studio somewhere in the country. in a studio somewhere in the country. But both are contributing to a film in their own way.

In conclusion, next time you see James Bond perform a gravity-defying stunt, a tiger sharing a boat with a boy, or a man trapped in another dimension, don’t forget to wonder if it’s a couple of Indian VFX companies or technicians/artists at work!

July 5, 2016
VFX Bloopers that Will Tickle your Funny Bone

Millions of dollar and thousands of hours are spend in making and editing a movie. But sometimes there are cracks and then there are mistakes. What happens when these two meet you wonder? You are treated to a world of funny VFX bloopers that will tickle you. Here are a list of funny VFX bloopers which slipped through the cracks.

Jurassic World

The 2015 American science fiction adventure film directed by Colin Trevorrow, is a movie which tried to use as many real life effects when possible. But even they weren’t spared the usual goof up. The scene when Owen rescues a worker from the raptor paddock, three raptors in front of him, the shadows of Owen and the raptors are in different directions. This is not easily caught, but you can’t unsee it once you see it.

The Matrix Reloaded

Everyone knows the ever-famous burly brawl. After Neo takes the pole for the fight with the Smiths, we have shots of Neo fighting with the pole. In those shots, we can see that Neo and the pole are computer-made. This becomes even more obvious because Neo was crushed into a wall and got all dirty before using the pole, and the computer-made Neo is completely clean. This is one of the noticeable “Matrix bloopers” fans love to point out, especially since the pole Neo uses to fight off the thousands of Smiths bends quite a few times during the fight.

Ang Lee’s The Hulk:

The Hulk by Ang Lee is often called an abomination to the world of VFX. Apart from a Hulk hat was too green to even look realistic there was one blooper that I don’t think everyone noticed. In this scene, the Hulk’s pants looks like a second skin, which in itself looks weird but then add movements like walking and it does this.

I have never seen pants do that in all my years on earth! Some viewers even find humour in scenes where characters like Hulk move in ways that almost seem out of place, akin to tickle scenes in movies that evoke unintentional laughs due to awkward visuals.

Race 2

In the scene when the Car behind Saif Ali Khan blows up, you can easily spot how the actual car changes into a dummy one. I know that you can’t just blow up cars whenever you want. But making the switch look a little realistic never hurt no one now did it? It’s a classic case of funny VFX moments where the transition feels so obvious that it adds an unintended bit of humour to the scene.

The Crawlers aka Troll 3:

If you watch the scene below carefully, you can see that right before the helicopter blows up, it turns into a toy! And here I thought an actual helicopter was supposed to blow up.

Along Came a Spider

A little bit of physics can take you a long way, especially in VFX. The car crash in Along Came a Spider looks like it’s been pulled from a low-grade game and defies all the rules of physics. The crash’s speed and severity don’t seem to match up, nor do the absurd number of flips that the car performs before becoming conveniently hooked on some wiring on the edge of the bridge. This is one of those funny VFX moments where the scene’s intended suspense shifts to unintentional humour because of how exaggerated the physics are.

Ghost Rider

When Johnny Blaze discovers his transformation into the demon hunter Ghost Rider, he pauses to look at himself in the mirror. There is no problem in the scene, except for his abs, which are unreal.

The Mummy Returns

The emergence of the Scorpion King was hyped up from the beginning of the film, but his emergence at the end was downright disappointing. The Scorpion King barely resembles The Rock. At times his eyes seem to melt off of his face. I am sure Dwayne must have been really embarrassed to see this version of him on screen.

Hey, now, everyone makes mistakes! Only sometimes are they hilarious, almost like tickle scenes in movies that make us laugh when they’re least expected.

August 17, 2015
What you need to know about the VFX Process

December 31, 2014
King Kong – What Does it Take to Make a Movie of that Magnitude?a

In the early 1900’s, every adolescent minds all over the world had but one obsession, THE KING KONG movie. This tall mighty creature ruled the fantasy of many as he went about living his own life on an island protecting in a rather daunting manner his blonde infatuation. Borrowed from a comic, this character went to fascinate the world so much that a movie just had to be made. The first one to do any justice to the character came out in the year 1933. The only adjectives that seemed to do justice to the movie were that of excitement, romance, danger, and impending doom plus the superlatives of the same.

It wasn’t until this movie, that the world actually saw the truly limitless nature of film making. And the endless trickery that can be employed to create an escape route from the real world that you so desperately seek. How was King Kong 1933 made? So many techniques were brilliantly sculpted into the making that it was hard to notice yet very quick to inspire. Stop motion was needed to bring the 18ft giant to life, miniatures we used to great effect in some shots involving the jungle creatures and the actors but the one that is least spoken of are the matte paintings. The very story of the Kong would be nothing without the dark, scary, and haunting jungle that he lives in. Could there be a real location in the world were this movie could have been shot successfully yet safely? Most unlikely. So how do you create the illusion of being at a location without actually being there? Matte paintings! But what make these matte paintings truly special is not that they just give a backdrop to the King Kong movie but they make the movie stand out even today.

Before we get into the different matte paintings that made the movie, don’t you want to know how King Kong movie was even conceptualized? Back in those days, around 1933, the great depression was hitting the film industry hard as it got tougher and tougher to attract audience. Radio-Keith-Orpheum was one of them. To dig themselves out of near bankruptcy, they brought on board the highly regarded producer David O. Selznick from Paramount pictures to revive the creative structure. He was the one who first noticed the dying project creation and was fascinated by what trick cinema can do! This project was then remade into the might KING KONG. Now that you know whom to thank for King Kong movie, let’s move on the topic in focus, the matte paintings.

Matte Paintings from the Kong

This composite photo of many layers of glass art/shot or as we know it, matte paintings, was put together for the purpose of publicity. And it worked like a charm. This image of the men being forced to cross the log after coming face to face with a rather scary dinosaur certainly got the attention of the masses!

It is very much suspected that this shot of New York from the movie’s introduction was, in reality, a matte painting!

Skull Island. This painting authenticated the crew’s arrival at the location and provided the perfect backdrop for the native drum beating and Max Steiner’s near-perfect musical cues

Can’t you see the trouble brewing? This scene is most probably the result of a combination of matte art and flaming torch elements into a rear projection.

This scene of the Kong arriving is a result of Williams travelling matte process. Kay on a very limited set is matte into a miniature environment!

All this is well and good but here are a couple of matte shots of what you have been waiting for! The jungle that is home to the Kong.

And here is a peak at the men at work who made all these wonderful matte paintings happen!

The King Kong VFX and matte paintings are among the best I have ever seen.

December 8, 2014