Cityscapes

Working on the visual effects for RA.One was a challenge in many ways,Eyeqube studios tells Screen.

Shah Rukh Khans magnum opus RA.One created a record when the visual effects of the entire movie crossed 3000 shots. Spread across various studios based out of many countries,Eyeqube Studios was one of the visual effects companies that worked on two important scenes of the movies. Eyeqube is the visual effects arm of Eros International,the co-producer of RA.One.

According to Sachin Bole,VFX Supervisor, RA.One was outsourced to Eyeqube by Red Chillies,SRKs company,at an advanced stage of post-production. We have worked on about 500 shots of the movie. Most of the shots involved working on the Level 1 and Level 3 of the game set in the movie, he said. RA.One features three levels of game play at the end of which G.One,played by Khan,defeats Ra.One,played by Arjun Rampal.

The first level occurs when Prateek,played by Armaan Verma,goes to the laboratory of his father Shekhar,played by Khan,to check out the game for himself. For that scene,the brief was to create a convention centre that looked innovative and futuristic. The scene had been shot previously against a green scale and a few props were seen in the scene. We added glass and poles to give it a futuristic feel and make it look believable, Bole said. He added that the team got a brief from Haresh Hingorani of Red Chillies VFX about the type of effects required. Vamsi Ayyagiri,COO of Eyeqube said that one of the biggest shots executed by his team was creating and subsequently destroying a futuristic-looking Mumbai city. We built the entire city by computer graphics. We created about 12 shots that were later merged into one to create the complete skyline. Most of the work involved creating the environment and doing matte painting for RA.One, he said.

Bole said that a majority of the team,which included creative director Charles Darby and VFX producer Manish Dembla among others,researched on the Internet to find references for recreating Mumbai. We also took time to come up to the level of quality expected from this movie. There was a lot of to and fro between us as well as with Red Chillies. It took about six months and 50 people to execute all the shots and although 500 might seem like a small number,the sheer scale of the shots made it a challenge, he said. To ensure that they didnt go overboard with edit changes,the team first created 30 frames, which had static scenes of a devastated city referenced from the Internet,that were approved by Red Chillies before going full steam on the project.

The biggest challenge actually came while the team was working on the third level in the climax of the movie. As Bole said,The climax was a very complex set to execute. Some of the shots had vigorous camera movements that we had to re-track and blend with the visual effects. This is the first time our team has worked on a VFX project that matches international standards.

While Bole said Indian producers will now spend more time and money on visual effects after watching the success of RA.One,Ayyagiri is confident that Hollywood movies,too,are not far behind. When they see that Indian studios can independently create the level of effects seen in RA.One for a few crores instead of hundreds of millions they spend on their VFX,I am sure that they will come to India to stop their budgets hitting the roof, he concluded.