Deciphering Finesse

In conversation with VFX producer - Keitan Yadav, VFX supervisor - Haresh Hingorani, DOP - Manu Anand, and chief colourist - Ken Metzker, on one of the most demanding movie projects - Zero

- Anisha Gakhar

Every once in a while there is a movie made, which boasts of extraordinarily enticing visual graphics, colour grading and cinematography. One such 2018 movie, the Shahrukh Khan starrer Zero, oozed unparalleled mastery and intricacy. A lot went into making Shahrukh appear like a dwarf, as simple as it might sound. Whilst chatting with the double duo at the red chillies.vfx office in Mumbai, it was fascinating for me to comprehend the exorbitant amount of unrivalled dedication, expertise and attention-to-detail, which was sautéed into the making of the movie.

Zero is a 2018 Indian romantic drama in Hindi, written by Himanshu Sharma and directed by Aanand L. Rai. The movie stars Shah Rukh Khan as Bauua Singh, Anushka Sharma as Aafia Bhinder, and Katrina Kaif as Babita Kumari. The story revolves around the protagonist Bauua Singh, a short man from Meerut who is in a love triangle with Aafia Bhinder, a scientist with cerebral palsy, and a film superstar Babita Kumari. This love triangle thrusts Bauua into an adventure to discover both - his true love and a fulfilling life.

THE INCEPTION

The idea of the movie was conceived after the making of Shahrukh Khan starrer, Fan. A man of handsome height had to be portrayed as a 4ft 6in tall dwarf, throughout the movie. After deliberation, the team chose to make Shahrukh appear shorter, instead of using a real dwarf and then replacing his face with that of Shahrukh’s. This involved the use of an exaggerated amount of VFX technology, though.

“When we were first given the brief, we did not know what the story was, since it would only materialise if we could manage the highly-demanding visual effects without using the head replacement technique, which is most-widely used,” explained Keitan Yadav, COO and VFX producer, redchillies.vfx.