Pixion adds VFX shimmer to Anees Bazmee’s Thank You

Akshay Introduction The complexity of achieving the final appearance of this shot is an example of technical innovation meeting artistic requirements. The shot starts with a Helicam shot of Toronto skyline and finally settles down with a close up of Akshay Kumar’s character Kishan. To accomplish their mission, Read More">the team at Pixion had to stitchRead More

Akshay Introduction

The complexity of achieving the final appearance of this shot is an example of technical innovation meeting artistic requirements. The shot starts with a Helicam shot of Toronto skyline and finally settles down with a close up of Akshay Kumar's character Kishan. To accomplish their mission, the team at Pixion had to stitch three different shots to make one seamless shot. This shot was recorded using a helicopter but because of technical reasons, the camera hooked on to the chopper couldn't get close to Akshay's face but since this was a crucial establishing shot, they shot the close ups using another camera mounted on a zip rig. "Since there was a lot of distortion and warp in the camera movements in the chopper shots in the different angles taken, our challenge was matching two different magnifications, this was a tricky task for us," said Naveen Paul VFX supervisor of the film. The crowd in the scene was digitally multiplied and the different camera shots were stitched using Boujou and Maya. The composite was accomplished through Nuke. Sohail Shaikh with his team of match movers and compositors used projections in Nuke and accomplished the purpose of the shot. The shot where Akshay lands on was actually black and made red digitally.

King’s Introduction Scene Mukesh Tiwari plays a comic don named King in the film, and in this sequence King is introduced in the film. It was not possible for production to destroy an expensive car for the sake of a shot. In this scene, Read More">king grabs an MP5 Navy semi-automatic gun from one of hisRead More

King's Introduction Scene

Mukesh Tiwari plays a comic don named King in the film, and in this sequence King is introduced in the film. It was not possible for production to destroy an expensive car for the sake of a shot. In this scene, king grabs an MP5 Navy semi-automatic gun from one of his guard's and starts shooting the car. The team at Pixion had the task of recreating the bullet holes in the side of the car which had to be visibly credible, to achieve this scene an array of matte paintings were made, and different layers such as the lighting layer, the alpha channels and the matte paintings passes were merged in the compositing phase. The final result of the merged output was ideal for such a sequence.

Karvachauth Scene To enhance the look of this sequence Anees Bazmee wanted to change the floor completely and a lot of CGI elements were added to enhance the scene for example, Read More">the fire lamps (diyas) were made and multiplied for the scene. Even the buildings visible were generated digitally since this shot was shot againstRead More

Karvachauth Scene

To enhance the look of this sequence Anees Bazmee wanted to change the floor completely and a lot of CGI elements were added to enhance the scene for example, the fire lamps (diyas) were made and multiplied for the scene. Even the buildings visible were generated digitally since this shot was shot against a chroma background again. The sky was digitally colored and the moon was also added artificially, matte paintings were made to replace the floor digitally. The layers made for this sequence were merged later on while compositing in Nuke.

The Waterfall The shot where Sonam cries on Akshay’s shoulder at Niagara Falls was actually shot in India and the narrative was enhanced digitally as well, the waterfall was shifted from right to behind Sonam and Akshay on screen. The grass on the mountain was cropped from the area, Read More">and thus the credibility of theRead More

The Waterfall

The shot where Sonam cries on Akshay's shoulder at Niagara Falls was actually shot in India and the narrative was enhanced digitally as well, the waterfall was shifted from right to behind Sonam and Akshay on screen. The grass on the mountain was cropped from the area, and thus the credibility of the shot was achieved through innovative visual effect techniques. The water splash and ripples visible in the film was CGI as well.

The film was shot using a Super 35mm film camera, but some of the helicopter shots were taken using an HD camera. In almost every scene Rotoscopy was used for the film. Apart from the CGI and digital enhancements, an unbelievable 400 shots were digitally cleaned of wires and other unwanted objects seen in the footage. Crowd multiplications were accomplished not only for Akshay's character's introduction but for his marriage sequence towards the end as well. On having a large project at hand, Viral said, "As we have a powerful tool in our hand for compositing, Nuke has given us the advantage of its projections we made use of matte painting in many sequences of the film." Speaking about the complexity, Naveen Paul, VFX Supervisor said, "The most challenging part was to complete the project flawlessly within a very short span of time. However, we delivered the project within the specified time with the desired output."

Click here to watch the VFX making video of Thank You

Cafeteria Shot The scene where Celina, Rimi and Sonam who play the protagonists wives get together and decided to hire a detective, Read More">was shot against a chroma background in the original footage. The team at Pixion had to recreate the Toronto skyline and match it up by recreating the skyscraper buildings seen on screen. MostRead More

Cafeteria Shot

The scene where Celina, Rimi and Sonam who play the protagonists wives get together and decided to hire a detective, was shot against a chroma background in the original footage. The team at Pixion had to recreate the Toronto skyline and match it up by recreating the skyscraper buildings seen on screen. Most of the building in the scene comprised of a CGI 3D mesh model of buildings which were made using Maya.