Prime Focus recently delivered 89 VFX shots for Vishesh Films latest venture “Jannat 2” which released on 4th May 2012. This is Prime Focus’ third collaboration with Vishesh Films.
The VFX as well as the DI of the film was done by Prime Focus.
The entire VFX work on the film was completed within a period of 3-4 weeks. Leading the VFX was Merzin Tavaria , Chief Creative Director and the VFX was supervised by Mahesh Baria.The DI was headed by Rohan Desai, DI Head and Chief Colorist and look for the film was set by Aashirwad Hadkar.
Jannat 2 is a fast paced thriller revolving around a hard-bitten cop and his hustling informer.The movie is directed by Kunal Deshmukh and is produced by Mahesh Bhatt and Mukesh Bhatt, it features Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Imran Zahid and Esha Gupta in lead roles.
Speaking to Animationxpress.com, about the challenges faced during the project Mahesh Baria, VFX Supervisor said that, “A team of 35 artists based in the Prime Focus facilities of Mumbai and Hyderabad were involved in the VfX of the film.The most challenging part of the movie was the opening title sequence. We were involved from conceptualization right up to design for this particular sequence.There are a lot of key sequences like the introductory sequence of Randeep’s character and a sequence where Emraan runs into Jama Masjid which were challenging as well.The treatment was done keeping in mind the grungy, hyper-real and gangster theme of the storyline. This was a major task as it involved a lot of multi-layering work and we had to use roto for cutting out each character.Kunal had a very clear vision in his mind about the look and we wanted to go by his vision so we started off with a lot of concepts and we are glad that, in the end, we achieved a graphically-enticing sequence that instantly sets up the pace of the story- exactly what the director had in mind.
There are many sequences in the movie shot in chroma showing Emraan and other people in a car travelling through the bylanes of Delhi. This required extensive work as we had to composite the background, add moving reflections and glass textures to the moving footage of the Delhi cityscape
For the introduction sequence of the character Randeep is playing,the sequence was already shot but the width of the edge of the terrace was too broad, so Kunal was not happy so the width was narrowed through VFX to give it a edgy look. Another challenge was to maintain one particular look for the film.The movie was shot in real locations of Delhi, it was shot in the interior areas so the light was not constantly the same. This obviously made it very difficult for our VFX team, since the VFX shots should blend into the story. But as we were involved with the film since pre-production we knew what Kunal wanted,he had a very clear vision in his mind on what should be the entire look of the film so there wasn’t much of a problem.” added Baria.
Talking about their association with Vishesh Films, Merzin Tavaria, Chief Creative Director said, “Every collaboration with Mahesh Bhatt and Mukesh Bhatt at Vishesh Films has been an absolutely amazing. We have worked with them on ‘Raaz 2’ as well and working on this film was a very rewarding experience and we are glad that we could deliver to the expectations of the director and producer.”
Elaborating more on the DI of the of the film ,Rohan Desai, DI Head and Chief Colorist said, “The DI team at Prime Focus completed grading on ‘Jannat 2’ over two weeks.With the story of the movie revolving around the illegal arms trade, the grade was set to a rustic brown tone, allowing a very dark and realistic look” said Rohan. “It was challenging for us to subtly match the grade to the realistically shot grungy scenes in Delhi. Most of the scenes are shot at real locations and some of the key action sequences in the film which are of 2-3 minutes are shot at 2-3 locations.The credit should go to Aashiward Hadkar who is the colorist and the DoP Bobby Singh who has done a fantastic job capturing the grimy, dirty interiors of Delhi. It was great to work with Vishesh Films again,they are like friends to us,it was a joy working with them.”
Prime Focus is currently working on the DI of Cocktail, Ek Tha Tiger and Teri Meri Kahani which is going to release shortly. They are also doing the DI and restoration of all Vishesh Films Few international projects are also in the pipeline.