Ra.One: India's Iron Man
Ra.One is the maiden feature by Bollywood superstar and producer Shah Rukh Khan (nicknamed SRK and King Khan) from his entertainment production company, redchillies.vfx. He began his career with the TV serial Fauzi and became an overnight heartthrob. His last film, My Name is Khan, was an international hit. SRK now wants to conquer the hearts of children, not by adorning a special suit -- the costliest worn to date by any hero onscreen in India -- but by providing a superhero to children. The intention is to shake up viewers across the world utilizing some of the latest CG advancements. Mamta Narang interviews Jeff Kleiser (who served as lead visual effects supervisor) along with the heads of redchillies.vfx: Harry Hingorani (production director and vfx supervisor) and Keitan Yadav (COO and vfx producer). Ra.One is slated to be released in October coinciding with the Diwali festival.
Mamta Narang: What's the total VFX budget of Ra.One?
Keitan Yadav: At this point in time, this can't be disclosed, but all I can say is that this is the most expensive and one of a kind VFX movie done in India to date. The VFX budget is enormous like the budget of a big Bollywood blockbuster.
MN: What has been the most challenging work in Ra.One to date?
Harry Hingorani: Sixty % of work in Ra.One is visual effects. We have around 37 sequences and a majority of them are difficult and time consuming, as you can see in the trailer. The most challenging sequence is the suit of SRK, which is a combination of visual effects plus reality.
Jeff Kleiser: We have spent a good deal of time developing the pipelines for the cubic transformations in the film. There are actually six or seven different algorithms required to facilitate all the on-screen action, and the development and testing of these pipelines has been the most challenging aspect of the show for me.
KY: We started the Redchillies.vfx in 2006. Shah Rukh Khan wanted to make something big involving VFX and that was the intension behind starting redchillies.vfx. We gained knowledge. We didn't do any projects after the movie My Name is Khan. We had 150 artists just focused on doing the research and development. We concentrated on setting up the right team and the software in the preproduction. The shooting started on March 2010 after extensive R&D.
MN: What's unique about Ra.One?
HH: A superhero is being offered to children, which has never been done in Indian cinema before and this global team.
MN: How many professionals are working officially? How is the management done?
KY: We have been working 24 hours, in multiple shifts and on multiple shots and sequences. At times, multiple studios are working on one shot. There are 300 artists from redchillies.vfx out of a total of 650-700 people working at other studios worldwide.
MN: How many shots are there?
KY: There are 3,500 + shots amounting to about 2 hours and 15 minutes of combined VFX. A major chunk is happening at redchillies.vfx. We have planned much in advance and have outsourced the work pretty early to curb the domino effects of delays.
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TUpGoLW
Just tired of Indians taking away American Jobs. Thats all. Has nothing to do with the culture, if they're nice people or not etc.
THe cheap ass American Companies, like Dreamworks, Rhythm and Hues, and Sony are to blame for this shit work.
If they didn't only see the "bottom line" as a factor for the work, and actually cared about quality, and putting dollars back into the American economy, they wouldn't outsource it to a cut-rate country that does sub-par work.
So... not saying India is to blame. If we were in a similar financial position as you, i.e. living in a mud hut....yes...I'm sure we'd take the work and do it with a whistle and a smile.
The whole situation is just sickening. across the board.
It saddens me to see so many harsh comments based on just one article about the state of Indian VFX and Indian Film in general.
India obviously has a lot of catching up to do on the VFX front, but considering that they haven't been doing it for a long time their stuff isn't that bad at all.
Having been to the place a few times has made me appreciate that a lot of the workers there haven't had the opportunities that us westerners have in terms of education and training, let alone availability of tools.
But it certainly isn't for lack of trying and Indians in general are some of the hardest working people you'll ever meet (and in fact also some of the most generous and friendly!).
We also have to appreciate the cultural differences; if your attitude is that anything that isn't western is shit, or you don't recognize that there are vast cultural differences between Indian culture and our own (and thus also in storytelling), then you're missing out greatly and doing yourself a disservice.
That doesn't mean that at times they'll imitate something from the west (and sometimes badly); but it's not like we ourselves aren't guilty of that:) (how many foreign films have been remade in the past 5 years for an english/american audience?!!!)
Last but not least, if you read the article you'll find that they're actually very aware of their own limitations and quality of work compared to the west; I'd even go as far saying that they're far too humble about what they have achieved...
So no need for the negativity and slagging; if you think (or know) you can do it better, then surely you can live with safe with the knowledge that you could do it a lot better without having to badmouth people...
Knowledge wants to be free, just like these arteicls!
I worked with Indian professionals (use that term loosely) as outsourced talent (this term as well). And this looks just like what they would give us back, half quality poorly conceived cg. If you tell them specifically step by step how to do something you may just get back what you want, but otherwise you will get back garbage.
Garbage in garbage out.
This movie looks exactly like what I would expect them to do rip off existing ideas due to the lack of imagination and creativity in their workers. Also I can guarantee it took three times as long as it would take an American team to do, but cost 50 times less.
Just go away from the rest of the CG World India!!
Thank you so much for this aticlre, it saved me time!
redchillies is one of the best studio in india for a quality work.
i m very exited to see india new india super hero.
The big budget film Ra.one is the AWESOME movie for india & for all of us....waiting for it
people think they know it all.. try to make a superhero movie with the buget of 150 crore.
I respect all people who are working on ra.one cuz they are doing somthing new in india vfx wise dont come and here judge like you are the director of Avatar.
If a 3 out of 10 quality is all India is shooting for.....then, I'd say they're a success.
"An Original Story"? Good luck. All India does is Rip Off existing stories and properties from other countries.
Monkey see, monkey try to do...but do 1/3 as well.
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