A movie is being screened at a multiplex in Kochi. 1917 – the name and the year the movie is set. British soldiers Will and Tom are on a mission to call off an attack doomed to fail after the German retreat during World War I. In nail-biting scenes that follow, they cross the no-man’s land, escape from booby traps and explosions, but Tom is killed. Will continues with the mission, to pass on the message to stop the deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers, Tom’s brother among them. Will is then picked up by a British unit. Among them is a Sikh national. Suddenly, a few in the theatre shrieked in excitement, seeing an Indian face in a British movie.
They would have been doubly excited if they knew that the movie team had two Keralites, who toiled hard to create immaculate visual effects. The movie had won Oscar for visual effects. Besides, it clinched the coveted award for cinematography and sound mixing.
Who are they?
Sankar Lal and Ayyappadas Vijayakumar are part of the 800-member Vfx team of Moving Picture Company (MPC) which worked on the movie for over nine months.
The MPC team in Montreal, Los Angeles, Bengaluru and London are behind the astounding cinematic experience that made the audience experience the immediate peril and vast scale of the war, in a real time narration played as one continuous shot.
Vaikom native Ayyappadas is part of the Vfx editing team in Montreal, Canada. A post-graduate from Leeds Beckett University, England, in digital video and special effects, Ayyappadas is the son of Vijayakumar and Jayalakshmi of Chennatt House in Kulasekharamangalam. An alumnus of TocH Institute of Science and Technology, Kochi, he was a lead digital artist for the 2017 Oscar-winning The Jungle Book.
Sankar Lal, a native of Oachira in Kollam, is the son of Manilal and Geetha of Thazhava in Chakkalathara. The head of modelling at MPC in Bengaluru, the 33-year-old is married to Vijayalakshmi Neginal, senior CGI texturing artist at Target Corporation.
What did they do?
The Vfx team’s work included digital environment extensions, including, no-man’s land, canal crossing, the burning village of Écoust and Schofield’s jump into the river, as well as destruction, pyro and water effects.
The plane crash utilised multiple techniques, including plate stitching, CG planes and CG destruction. The burning city of Écoust was shot on a partial set on a backlot.
CG destroyed-architecture and fire effects were then added to extend the scale and the scope of the burning city. The river sequence was shot in an Olympic water park in order to get practical direct water interaction with Will as he is swept down the rapids.
MPC Film, which is in business since 1970, is behind the effects in blockbuster movies like The Jungle Book, Shazam!, Dumbo and The Lion King. The studio has received two Academy Awards for its work in The Jungle Book and Life of Pi and two BAFTA Awards for its work in The Jungle Book and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
MPC’s VFX work in 1917 was also recognised at the BAFTAs where they won the award for Special Visual Effects. Shot almost entirely outdoors in the UK, the film had received 10 Oscar nominations and had won the Golden Globe for Best Picture drama and the Producers Guild of America award for Outstanding Producer of a Theatrical Motion Picture.
(The writer is an independent journalist based in Kochi)
