Interesting Facts Behind the Special Effects & VFX in “Baahubali”
Baahubai, both its parts have been nothing but a treat to one’s senses and bring that about has been only one thing: Special Effects and VFX! And by no stretch of imagination has it been only a small part! Practically every inch of these films have been only and only VFX and Special effects.
Today we tell you some unique things about these films like:
Point # 1: Most of Bahubali’s VFX was “made in India”! Yes, an astounding 90% to be precise was made in India by Indian VFX technicians and specialists who were greatly appreciated even by the likes of Hollywood. In fact, in some circles, Bahubali has a higher rating for VFX than the likes of Hollywood Blockbusters like 300! In times to come, we shall only see more, better and grander stuff coming to world cinema from India! Even a song in the film titled “Bahubali Manohari” became famous and so too the persons therein including dancers Gabriela Bertante, Scarlett Wilson and Nora Fatehi!
Point # 2: Liberal use of LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging): LIDAR is to vision what RADAR is listening! And this technology was used for the first time and quite extensively for this film. It’s expensive BUT, it gives results! And did just that at a fraction of the time it would otherwise take to map the city and show it in 3D. LIDAR did it under a week and did the job of scanning the city’s topography digitally with high, high accuracy which going forward helped digitally enhance parts of the city when and where required!
Point # 3: Liberal use of Animatronics! Animation and Electronics when put together means a science of mimicking the movements of animals such that they appear real. In Bahubali, these were used extensively given that the movie itself had ample and more scope to do so often. By doing so, movements of Animals were seen in their most natural ways be it while they simply walked, ran or fought! And this is precisely where Bahubali, the movie excelled! In making things look real. Very, very real indeed! Elephants are massive and making them dance to one’s tunes can then be a massive exercise. Using Animatronics, elephants in Bahubali were made to show doing very many scenes- otherwise impossible to shoot!
Point # 4: Presence of a Genius called V Srinivas Mohan, the guy who single handedly was the reason for the astounding VFX in the movie! He had been up to it in the past with films like Robot, I and Sivaji the Boss and was known to use extreme camera techniques to get the shot that he wanted. In Bahubali, he went miles ahead of his earlier commitments and bringing to the fore all his experiences, shot the VFX in spectacular fashion. With the Director’s blessings and full freedom to experiment and perform V Srinivas Mohan has brought about more than a Magnum Opus. In fact Bahubali is a 1000 times over!!
Point # 5: Massive, Massive waterfall scenes! Even the Angels Waterfall in South America would look small and inconsequential in comparison when compared to the waterfall in Bahubali! With Director Rajamouli’s wish to see the waterfall coming straight out of a cloud, it had to be done such that it appeared real. And it did because of the coming together of Rajamouli, Sabu Cyril, K. K. Senthil Kumar and Srinivas Mohan. Of special mention would be Firefly Creative Studios who did extensive work on pre and post visualization and production work on just the waterfall scene. A special waterfall background measuring 2500 feet was put in place to get the right feel on which went the best of 3D camera projection and camera work which used unheard-of filming speeds. And at the end what we got, seemed worth all the efforts!
Point # 6: The emotional connect which this movie had with its creators – including its crew right down to the extras and light and sound assistants! High Octane is the only word which can describe this connect which had the crew’s high energy mixed with high-technology to get the right effects. Be it the story department, the sound score, the editing etc, everything was synced with the exclusive purpose of creating a seamless whole!.
The most endearing aspect of this film has been the use of chroma / green screen which was replaced with the needed background be it elements or props. The output in terms of screen presence has been immense!Especially the armies on both sides which were portrayed to be close to 1.5 lacs! A total of 1200 feet of green-chroma was created at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad which itself took close to 3-5 months to execute. To give the final product its authenticity, even the junior most of the artists were trained to fight with swords, on horseback and the likes. No movie till date has taken up working at such a scale and score!
Point # 7: Use of specialized studios and equipment(s) including the Makuta Visual Effects Studio brought the visual of Bahubali to a level unsurpassed in the Indian and Foreign film industry! Makuta is one of the best post production houses of International repute & has won the Best Visual Effects award at Film fare and Cinema A in 2012. Based out of Hyderabad, they do super-extensive post production activity using highly skilled personnel and over-the-top machinery. For Bahubali they created close to 5000 VFX shots using all known techniques like Rotoscoping, Matte Painting, Chroma removal, Set extension, rig and wire removals, 2D and 3D Tracking, 3D creation, to name a few.
Point # 8: Lavishness of the concept of the movie itself! The story itself is set in some set period in the medieval past. The story, all its elements and sub-stories were created well with the character of each person being created with finesse and completeness. Nothing seemed out of place and no character seemed incomplete which includes not only humans, but even the city Mahishmati, people’s feelings, ethos of those times and the feeling of coming right back into the past. No stones have been left upturned to make it sound and look grand and at the same time very convincing
