Akbar Khan’s Epic Period film Taj Mahal touted as one of the costliest films ever in Bollywood made at budgets around Rs 500 Million is all set to release on November 18.
Revolving around the eternal love story behind one of the seven wonders of the world, the mere mention of Taj Mahal as a movie arouses expectations of some great art design, cinematography and period costumes.
Going by the publicity stills and promos, lovers of Mughal style art are in for a treat. Needless to say, the subject also demands a good deal of VFX & CG and Taj Mahal does boast of some good amount of VFX work done by Chennai based Oysterr, which is headed by Venkata Krishnan.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress, Producer Director Akbar Khan said,”The subject of the film demanded technical and artistic finesse in all departments and that includes VFX. I am very happy with the result that Oysterr has provided. We involved the VFX team right since pre production because we knew that the earlier we involved the VFX team, the better results we would be able to get.”
Oysterr Chief Venkat Krishnan shared “It was an awe that turned out to be awesome. An assignment that demanded every cell of VFX architecture tested altered and redesigned. We had to research a lot due to the subject and Akbar Khan’s treatment of it which demanded a very realistic feel. In fact we found ourselves lost beneath the data we collected, but all of it was worth the effort”
“We worked very close with Akbar Khan who was very clear about what he wanted. We kept the workflow systematic and functionality structural. It wasn’t an easy task to simulate the historically realistic feel yet we have delivered in line with the expectations” he added.
On being asked to share VFX prod specs and details, Venkat refrained saying,”The objective is to let the audience go and experience the story, we can discuss the VFX post release”
There is a breed of film makers and cinematographers that believe that CG and digital technology cannot replace the richness and depth of film and sets, another breed treats VFX and CG as an art form as deep as any other. On being asked as to what his perspective on VFX and CG as an art form was? Akbar Khan agreed that VFX and CG are as deep an art form as any other element of Film Making.
However commenting on the usage of CG for realism and using it for enhancing the art direction, Khan citing the example of Jurassic Park and Troy opined that,”Every time we see a movie that has got some new level of VFX and CG in it we are overwhelmed, but as time passes by we can over repeated viewings observe certain flaws. Be it Hollywood or Bollywood, we still have not reached that desired level of perfection where absolute realism could be achieved through CG”
Taj Mahal is produced and directed by Akbar Khan under the banner Mashreq Communications Limited. Other credits include music by Naushad, cinematography by R. M. Rao, Art Direction by Ratnakar Phadke and VFX by Oysterr.
Oysterr has also recently seven minutes of VFX work on Malyalam movie Ananthabadhram which is directed by hotshot director cum cinematographer Santosh Sivan. The movie deals with super natural powers and is a clash betwen good and evil. The VFX for the movie involved a lot of live and CG compositing, rotoscopy and camera match moves.