Chandani Chowk to China saw immense visual effects, a challenging task taken up by Prime Focus. We caught up with Merzin Tavaria, the Creative head- VFX Prime Focus and VFX Supervisor on CC2C in an exclusive behind the scenes of the film. Chandni Chowk to China an epic journey of a film with vfx. Which started in ND studios,Karjat, passed through great wall of China, Bangkok and ended at Mehboob studios in Mumbai. Its taken 1 and a half year for this journey to reach its final culmination. But its been a learning experience and a fantastic ride.  | The Great Wall of China |  | This film is the first time in the Indian vfx industry that a film went through the correct process of actually being broken down scene by scene almost 6 months before going on the floor. Nikhil Advani and me sat on each scene which required vfx and debated and discussed the requirement. This really helped us atleast get a little organized. On location there were quite a few changes but this process really helped.
Through this process we figured our number of shots which stood at around 600 shots but by the end of post we landed up with more than 1000 shots.  | Tea House |  | This is also a first Studio film, Warner Brothers' maiden venture into the world of Indian cinema. I must say that was going to be no cakewalk. Add to that the team behind the very film made up of such great names as Ramesh Sippy, Nikhil Advani, Rohan Sippy and Mukesh Talreja. And ofcourse Akshay Kumar.  | Hakow Jetty Scene (Before and After) |  | The kind of shots in cc2c, as we refer to it, are very varied. They have what I call hyper real shots. It’s real but a little extra. A sequence has Mithun kicking Akshay and he flies through the air over chandni chowk. Everything is real but the flight is obviously a bit unreal. We have a complete song sequence of Deepika and Akshay jumping off a building in shanghai and flying through the sky with the shanghai skyline behind them. This required a complete cg build of Shanghai in 3d. This sequence was really challenging and exciting. I was super charged to work on this. In one of the action sequences Akshay who by now has learnt the art of Kungfu has a special move which is called a cosmic kick. When he uses this in a jetty fight sequence there is a huge tidal wave which shoots out of the water up to more than 100 feet in the air. This is by far the most challenging sequence as it involved particle dynamics. The result is wonderful and for all to see.  | Climax Scene |  | In the climax Akshay is supposed to move so fast that he builds up a dust storm around him. Again it’s all in the real space but it’s that little extra which makes it hyper real.
 | Shanghai Scenes |  | A nice little touch from Nikhil was of having an angel and devil as alter egos of Ranvir Shorey which appear on the actors shoulder every time he is scheming. The end result of two tiny angel and devil has turned out very nice. The miniature shoot of the characters was quite an experience. They were shot to scale in an indoor studio and I composited them live on set to show the director the complete effect of the performance.  | Shanghai Scene (Before and After) |  | The opening of the film has a shot of outer space as we descend to earth and start seeing the Great Wall of China. This is a very realistic shot and had to be totally believable. Followed by that is a shot where we travel from a birds eye view over New Delhi to Rajpat and India gate. This is a part of the story telling and had to be an invisible effect. It has the north block and south block buildings of Delhi with the India gate at the end.  | The Forbidden City |  |
Besides this, being an action film there were loads of wire removal and other clean up jobs. There were quite a few compositing shots as well which are totally seamless. A lot of the work gone into the film will be totally invisible.
 | Croma Shots with Akhay Kumar |  | The production kicked off more than 4 months before release but the bulk of the work after edit lock only started coming two months before release. That’s when we were hit by more than 800 shots. Being such a huge project I was able to pull it off with my Prime Focus team spread across all geographic locations, Hyderabad, Chennai, Goa and Mumbai being the center of it all.  | Village Song | Close to 150 artists have worked on this at one point as all shots and sequences had to be delivered simultaneously. Being a Warner Brothers film the quality and deliverability was of prime importance. Having just returned from Los Angeles and having met the people at Warner Brothers I am pleased and proud to say we have achieved what we set out to do of achieving what seemed like an impossible target.  | Shanghai Scene (Before and After) |  | By now you must have guessed what my experience was working on this film. Simply fantastic. The director had immense faith in me and I proudly say he selected to opt for me over a more experienced supervisor from Abroad. That's enough to say what kind of pressure I was under. His support and freedom that he gave me was fantastic.  | Hakow Jetty Scene (Before and After) |  | The challenges as in any big vfx heavy film is always that you may be doing quite a few things for the very first time. But that's the thrill of it as well. The team took it up with full enthusiasm and we delivered with flying colours. Another feather in Prime Focus cap and another milestone for Indian Cinema.  | Hakow Jetty Scenec
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