Indian Artists
"Massive VFX collabration with studios & artists worldwide for ‘Endhiran - The Robot'
About 10 studios and a number of freelance artists from across the world have collaborated with Chennai based visual effects studio Indian Artists Computer Graphics Pvt. Ltd for the Rajinikanth starrer VFX magnum opus ‘Endhiran - The Robot‘ that released on October 1st, 2010 all over India. V. Srinivas M Mohan had donned the dual role of being the VFX Supervisor for the entire film supervising the work of the other studios involved and also as the VFX Head at Indian Artists, being on the main studios that did about 80% of the work.
"Massive VFX collabration with studios & artists worldwide for ‘Endhiran - The Robot'
About 10 studios and a number of freelance artists from across the world have collaborated with Chennai based visual effects studio Indian Artists Computer Graphics Pvt. Ltd for the Rajinikanth starrer VFX magnum opus ‘Endhiran - The Robot‘ that released on October 1st, 2010 all over India. V. Srinivas M Mohan had donned the dual role of being the VFX Supervisor for the entire film supervising the work of the other studios involved and also as the VFX Head at Indian Artists, being on the main studios that did about 80% of the work.
LA based Legacy Effects formerly known as Stan Winston Studio that has earlier worked on movies like ‘Terminator‘ and ‘Jurassic Park‘ has worked on the animatronics for the movie. Hong Kong based studios namely Kinomotive Studios and Menfond Electronics & Arts have attended to the supervision of their respective VFX work. Other Indian studios that were involved in the project were Hyderabad based Firefly Studios; Chennai based VenSat, Pixion, EFX Prasad Studios, Ocher Studios, Mayans Creatives and Oysterr Studios. Also some freelancers from London, Canada, Iran, Germany, France and Hong Kong were part of the project.
The movie has about 2000 VFX shots that add up to around 60 scenes in the film. The majority of the VFX work has been handled by Chennai based studio Indian Artists under VFX supervisor V. Srinivas M Mohan and Frankie Chung who has worked on films like ‘Kung Fu Hustle‘ and Eddy Wong were the additional VFX Supervisors from Hong Kong studios Kinomotive studios and Menfond Electronics & Arts respectively.
VFX Supervisor for the film V. Srinivas M Mohan said "The major challenge for us was to achieve the final output within the limited budget considering the amount of work involved in the movie. The pre visualization for the vfx scenes was an important factor that helped us in working within the budget and the same time we also knew before hand what we were up to before the actual shoot."
The trilingual movie in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu with English subtitles produced by Kalanidhi Maran and directed by Shankar has Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles. It‘s a sci-fi movie in which Rajinikanth plays a dual role of a scientist and a robot. The scientist Dr. Vaseegaran creates a robot with artificial intelligence and names it as Chitti, the film goes on to show how Chitti mingles with society.
The animatronics was used in about 22 scenes in total for the movie. All the resources and technology available at Stan Winston Studio were used for the same including puppets and mannequins. About 40 mannequins of The Robot Ranjinikanth were got from Stan Winston Studio for the scenes involving number of robots.
The team has used some unique technology such as the Doom Light stage scanning for detail high resolution CGI face. Also the Indian Artists have developed a new proprietary skin shader plugin with the help of Jupiter Jazz, the developers of shake. The shader is open source and the code for it is available at https://code.google.com/p/jupiterskin/.
Srinivas shared "We have used lots of techniques which we haven‘t used before due to budget constraints such as the pre visualization which were much appreciated and welcomed by studios in the Hollywood when we approached them for their services. The concepts were all wonderful and they had liked the approach towards the film that we had. Thanks to Director Shankar sir for fresh and wild ideas with emotional sc-fi script."
Pre visualization of one the most important part of the visual effects work involved in the movie. About 40 scenes were pre visualized in the preproduction stage and done in animation before going in for the shoot. The pre production for these scenes alone took about 6-7 months. Sanath P.C from Firefly Studios worked on the pre production of the scenes and also on few of the VFX shots.
Talking on the pre production process Srinivas shares, "The Director knows and understands the limitations involved in VFX sequence which was a big plus for us. And so we did pre visualization for a scene alone at the initial stages for the director to understand the advantages of the same. The train sequence where the Robot jumps from the train into the river and then catches the train again was pre visualized as a test for the director. About 95% of the actual shoot of all the sequences that was pre visualized were according to the pre visualization only apart from a few which were due to the fact that the location details were not the same as the ones we had before."
Sanath P.C said "I worked with Sreeni for the VFX design and Pre-visualization for ROBOT. For all the VFX scenes of the move, we have done animated previs based on script and detailed shot division of Director. As a VFX supervisor Sreeni is taken extra care to make sure we don‘t miss out any details that is essential to communicate the idea to other technician who are from around the world. Sreeni got a through understanding of the tools of the trade and its capabilities along with an up to date knowledge of the innovations and latest development in the field, which according to me is the most essential quality for a good VFX supervisor. He uses this knowledge very effectively in planning a VFX shot in the most practical way. He also has extra ordinary patience and determinations getting in to the minute details to make the VFX shot work seamlessly in the scene. He understands the importance of VFX design and previz use it very effectively in his work for a more precise and predictable results. He was very particular on generating multiple options when ever the shots become complex."
VenSat had worked on the 100 robots introduction shot that were created by the Robot Chitti and a few climax scenes. In the climax sequence where more 100 robots are standing, mannequins were used. For the close up shots the faces for the mannequins were created in CG and composited by the team at VenSat. In the climax Robots skating on the road also executed in Vensat.
Vensat VFX Head Alagarswamy said "We feel delighted for having been a part of the massive super hit movie ‘Enthiran‘ (Robot). We worked on more than 250 VFX shots. Srinivas Mohan disseminated the inputs and clearly explained us the requirements and coordinated with us in every stage throughout the delivery. We at Vensat, worked as per his requirements and delivered the output with the best quality, which was achievable only because of our highly talented team who has 9 to 10 years of strong industry experience. During our work, the approval, coordination and understanding between our company and Srinivas Mohan Visual Effects Supervisor was very clear and smooth. Hence, neither of us faced any problems throughout the delivery."
Pixion Chennai has worked on the complete title sequence and the scenes where in the Robot Chitti uses his hand as a gun. They also contributed around 300 shots in throughout the film. EFX Prasad has worked on the ‘Arima arima‘ song sequence, while Ocher studios worked on the animation sequence where in the antagonist Dr. Bora explains the capabilities of the robots he is creating to the dealers, Mayans Creatives worked on the baby delivery sequence and Oysterr had worked on a shot.
Pixion VFX Supervisor Harihara Suthan said "The film "Endhiran" is not only a massive entertainer, but has also become a bean stalk climb in terms of recognition. The visual effects was breath taking and so was the expertise and knowledge, which was unleashed by the project CG and VFX Supervisor Srinivas to the Pixion family. The idea pitching shot execution and render processing were ushers of the day. From the block building stages to the final touch, the pipeline was a moon walk for the Pixionites even during "the crunch" dead lines, which could have not been possible sans the efforts of Pixion team and Srinivas. The efforts put in have become a feast on the big screen, hope the victory parade continues in the future."
The most interesting and challenging sequence in the movie was the climax sequence. The climax sequence involves 100s of robots grouping into a cluster with their electromagnetic powers and forming different shapes and forms of characters such as a giant snake and giant human. "Each of the robots had a separate biped and each of them had to be animated to for the formation of the final form and characters to be smooth, such the formation of the head of the giant snake. It was a challenging and exciting task to bring about the desired output. Frankie Chung worked on the character designs for the climax sequence and their final poses" added Srinivas.
"It was a wonderful experience working for the project. I have to thank all of Vfx team, Director Shankar Sir, Rajini Sir, Aiswarya mam, Sun pictures Kalanithi Maran Sir, Dop Ranthnavelu Sir, Art Director Sabu sir and Editor Antony sir for giving the great support in this entire execution period. For the audience the movie is an experience of 3 hours, but for us it was an unforgettable experience of about 3 years. We enjoyed each and every day and the last 6 months had been sleepless nights" concluded Srinivas.
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