Flight of imagination

Cinema Telugu film director S.S. Rajamouli talks about his Makkhi taking a successful flight to Bollywood. ANUJ KUMAR

“Now I can tell the world that the Indian film industry has Salman Khan on one side and aMakkhi on the other.” This is what Shekhar Kapur told director S.S. Rajamouli after watching the antics of his precocious fly. After a long time a dubbed film has created buzz at the Bollywood box office, and Rajamouli is elated.

Son of eminent Telugu writer and director S. Vijeyndra Prasad, Rajamouli says the idea ofEega (the title in Telugu) came from his father in the early ‘90s. “He narrated to us this love story where the villain kills the boy and he gets reincarnated as a housefly and torments the bad guy. We found it very funny.” Years later, after making a series of big-budget action blockbusters, when Rajamouli decided to “dabble in something small” the funny story came back to his mind. “Small films are usually romantic films, comedy films or horror films – the three genres I am not comfortable with. I wanted to make an experimental film which would shock the audience in a positive way. At that time the story resurfaced in my mind.”

Rajamouli says that when he started the idea was to make a Rs. three-crore film in five months. “Initially I was hesitant because, come to think of it, the idea was crazy. I thought only a small section of the audience would dare to come to theatres. But when the story was complete we knew we had a winner on our hands. So we went all out. It ended up being a Rs. 30-crore film and was made in two years.” According to reports the film garnered around Rs.130 crore in the Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam versions.

The film’s special effects have been appreciated. Rajamouli maintains that the perception that special effects will take a whole lot of budget is a misconception. “There are ways of working around it. I went for relative newcomers and gave them training. This film would have cost me four to five times more if I had gone to any established studio. I like larger-than-life ideas. I take an impossible situation and then make the audience believe in it. Sudeep is a superstar in Karnataka but I approached him after seeing his performance in Rann . I was not sure whether he would accept a negative role but not only did he accept the role but also made it so nuanced and intense.”

What prevents him from turning his works into Hindi, considering directors like A.R. Murugadoss and Siddiqui have done it? “As a storyteller I want to reach out to as many people as possible but I don’t want to make a remake. I spend almost two years on one subject, and I don’t want to spend another two years on the same subject. However, in my forthcoming films I am looking at the possibility of shooting my films simultaneously in Hindi.”

Rajamouli is all for the change that Hindi cinema has seen in the past couple of years. “The Hindi film industry is offering a complete package. On one hand there is mass masala like Rowdy Rathore and Salman Khan films, and on the other hand you have experimental films like A Wednesday , and there is space for innovative ideas like Vicky Donor as well. These films are commercially successful and catering to different sections of the audience. That is the way an industry should be.” Does the socio-economic profile of the audience coming to theatres influence the kind of films that are being made? “It could be just an argument. It is a chicken-and-egg kind of situation. You can’t deny the fact that there is too much gore in our films and I am myself guilty of it. In the last two to three films I have completely cut down the sleazy part and edited out too much violent portions but, being a director who has gone through this route, I feel we go for these things more out of insecurity rather than the audience wanting it. We feel that youngsters might like it. It is more out of insecurity than anything else, but I gradually realised that we are losing more audiences rather than gaining them. It is just a matter of time when we will be catering to all sections of society,” signs off Rajamouli with the promise that he is working on a big-budget historical.

I take an impossible situation

and then make the audience believe in it.

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Bumper amount for Eega Hindi satellite rights

Makkhi satellite rights sold for Rs.8 crores

SS Rajamouli's Eega, which flew high in Tollywood, migrated to Bollywood as Makkhi. Unfortunately, Makkhi failed to reach the heights in Bollywood. However, it was not a failure too. Anyway, success came in another form as the satellite rights of Makkhi were sold at eight crore rupees, which is undoubtedly a big figure for dubbing movies. Telugu film makers who have plans to dub their films in to Hindi can now be happy since Telugu dubbed movies will apparently be purchased for big amounts even if the movie doesn't do well at the box office. Rajamouli seems to be happy that his film's satellite rights were purchased for such a huge amount.

Makkhi: Sensational superfly

With bulging red eyes, tiny winged structure and wiry hands that victoriously punch the air, the fly in SS Rajamouli’s Telugu film, Eegathat now releases in Hindi as Makkhi has become a rage among the masses. And Makuta VFX, the studio that has worked on films like V. V. Vinayak’s Badrinath, Rajamouli’s Magadheera and Maryada Ramana, is responsible for bringing this fly to life. This revenge story of a man reborn as a fly to avenge his death and protect his girlfriend has over 2000 shots of computer graphics and was one of the toughest projects that the studio has worked on, according to Pete Draper, co-founder, division head and chief technical director at the studio. “Originally the film was going to be relatively low-budget and it would take shorter time in post-production but as the script progressed, the amount of animation treatment in the film increased and became more complex. The budget of the film also went up to Rs.25-30 crore,” says Draper. Here’s a look at how the studio achieved the animation of Makkhi.

Bringing fly to life

According to Draper, the studio took the references for the fly’s anatomy from real life flies. “We froze a lot of flies, so they go into hibernation but it doesn’t kill them. We photographed them closely to understand their anatomy, structure, etc,” says Draper. After creating the initial rig of the fly, the team began to shoot the film with this design but it didn’t work. “The body animation and the wings were fine but the face looked hyper-real and the design aesthetics didn’t work,” reveals Draper and adds, “We needed to exaggerate the physical features. For instance, we integrated a little nose, added feelers, toned down the hair and made it a little more fluffy like a mane on the fly’s head. It took nine months to lock the design of the fly.”

Integrating live action with animation

As the fly had to be integrated into live action scenario, it was imperative for the animators to be present on the sets during the film’s shoot to get clarity on the fly’s body movements. “The director treated fly as another character and he directed it as he would direct other actors. So two animators would shadow the director and they would do walk-in animation for the shots. For instance, as soon as the shot was taken, it would be trimmed, the animators would block the animation and show it to the director. After that, the director would dictate how the fly would move, it’s expressions, etc. We also recorded his instructions that aided the animators while working in the studio.”

Software used for animation

The studio created a split pipeline where Autodesk 3ds Max was used for modelling and animation while Autodesk Maya, with its innovative tools, was used for character animation. “The animation process took around eight months with around 20 artists—in house and outsourced— working on the animation. We used a split pipeline and the rendering of hard surface animation was done using 3ds Max.”

Facing challenges

Many sequences in this film proved to be quite a challenge for the studio. Moreover, some of the sequences that the studio worked on for months didn’t even make it to the final edit. “There is a scene where the fly gets stuck in the chain of a bicycle and we spent three months of production to create a perfect bicycle using VFX but the scene didn’t make it to the final edit,” says Draper. Another sequence that proved to be challenging was a scene in the film where the fly is just born and it has to leave the trench. “We had to make the trench look like Grand Canyon in front of the fly. He is running along the wall as its wings are not fully developed and simultaneously, water droplets fall on him, he is thrown from one wall to the other. This was the most complex scene because it involved every single discipline,” says Draper. For this particular scene, the animation artists used painting work, fluid dynamics, high levels of geometry, dynamic effects, etc. “For an average sequence involving visual effects, you roughly work with about maximum 10 million polygons to create images. For this scene, it took five billion polygons due to the amount of detail in terms of trench walls, debris, foam, etc. That was absolutely astronomical!” exclaims Draper.

Changes in the Hindi version

Surprisingly, the studio’s work didn’t end with the release of the Telugu version. Post the Telugu and Tamil release, the animators made a couple of changes in the film to tailor it for the Hindi market. “We jazzed up the effects in certain scenes that we were unhappy with. Moreover, in the Telugu version, we have an Eega dance number where he does specific dance moves related to South stars. In the Hindi version, we have shown him pay homage to Bollywood stars. For instance, he is doing the famous Salman Khan dance move with a towel.”

courtsy : indianexpress