“Sanjay Leela Bhansali didn’t believe in VFX 10 years back but now he does,” claimed Prasad Sutar who supervised the entire visual effects work for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s recent Bollywood blockbuster Bajirao Mastani.
At the ABAI Fest and KAVGC Summit 2016, NY VFXWAALA co-founder Prasad Sutar presented his detailed work in visual effects which included delivering 1800 VFX shots for the film. Right from background creation, crowd multiplication, horses, props, weapons, equipments, costumes to war sequences, the team of NY VFXWAALA under the supervision of Prasad Sutar took around two years to complete this project.
“Bajirao Mastani was a historical story and therefore we had to do a lot of research work. Moreover, it was a film that demanded things larger than life and Sanjay sir’s style of film making required utmost perfection and beauty,” exclaimed Prasad.
The major challenge that he faced was to deliver everything that Sanjay Bhansali wanted as Bhansali never believed in the word ‘no’. Prasad knew that the director had a phenomenal visualisation element and therefore the team strove to deliver the thoughts in the best way possible.
“Sanjay sir was a little skeptical to VFX and didn’t like green screens at all, therefore we used minimum green screens in the entire film.” He further shared one instance, “There was one sequence in the film where 500 real horses were brought and our whole team was striving to keep the horses standing in line as per the shot. But, this was not possible so we reduced the number of horses to 200. Yet, making the horses stand in discipline was not happening at all. Finally, we shot the sequence with just two horses and added the rest using visual effects and CG animation.”
This is how the team and Prasad Sutar himself gradually induced the trust in VFX in the veteran filmmaker Sanjay Bhansali. He recollected, “During Ram Leela, Sanjay sir didn’t like the idea of green or blue screens until one day on shoot I heard him say by himself that one portion of the film will be done on blue screes. That’s how his trust had transformed.”
While the shooting of Bajirao Mastani was on, due to some issues, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone were in different locations. So, the scenes were shot in different places individually with the artists and then Prasad and his team managed the integral task of putting both the scenes together.
“The trust in VFX work is increasing and there are alternate ways to deliver anything that seems impossible. Being in the industry since around 16 years, I have seen the evolution of VFX in India,” concluded Prasad as he showcased the VFX breakdown showreels. Thus, the audience at the ABAI Fest and KAVGC Summit 2016 got a chance to experience the glimpse of the immense VFX work done in Bollywood films and the potential of Indian VFX studios.