Kangana Ranaut’s upcoming film Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi is the new popular meme among the fans. They absolutely love it and can’t get enough of it. This period drama is an epic story of Rani Lakshmi Bai who was the queen of Jhansi. History recalls her as the first warrior queen in India. Here saga of bravery had us recite poems in school textbooks. Directed by National Award winning director Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi, Written by K.V Vijayendra Prasad, From the Writers of Bahubali, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. this film is on its way to create a legacy of its own. Over the past few years, Bollywood has seen a string of period drama films. But mark my words; this one will blow your minds. The film is based on the life of Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi and her war against the British East India Company, during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
What do we know so far?
Since the release of its trailer all we know is that the visual effects quality reflected in Manikarnika will be a topic of discussion after the release. We will dive into the technical elements spotted in the trailer later. But before we go there let us discuss the awesome picture correction. Some people also call it the colour correction. Colour correction is the technique that enables us to distinguish all the prominent colours on the screen with brilliance. This leaves no room for any kind of mistake.
Another amazing feature is the proper depiction of the time period. That itself tells us about the huge contribution of VFX into the post-production.
Post production and visual effects of MANIKARNIKA
It is no easy task to bring the 1800s in 2018. Creating two centuries back sets and atmosphere took a lot of toll on the visual effects artists. The visual effects training was thoroughly guided by giving a brief sketch of what the scenario was two centuries back.
Another technique used in the film is–crowd multiplication. This technique has shown its importance in a lot of war and crowd sequences. Remember the army of the dead in Game of Thrones or the army of Dothraki? They were all shot with crowd multiplication. In such cases, a set of the crowd’s taken and then duplicated to put in several chunks which make up for a greater army. This is a visual effects technique which makes the scenes easier to shoot.
Extra efforts in the Visual effects department
A lot of people do not know this but when scenes of period drama films get created a lot of the VFX elements have to get drawn using the hand. You cannot simply put into the scene by visual effects. VFX artists have to draw them first and then proceed with the insertion. Realism is a very big factor when a project is as big as Rani Lakshmi Bai. Creating a saga like this takes a large amount of planning.
The palaces, backdrops war fields, animals, crowd generation and etc get done with the help of extremely skilled VFX artists.
In addition to that, no compromise could be ever made when it came to narrating the story of glorious Manikarnika. In the trailer itself, Amitabh Bachchan is voicing the background. With Kangana Ranaut’s mind-boggling acting, the VFX had to be up to the standard. The makers made sure that no department was even remotely left vacant in terms of post-production.
While editing, thousands of frames which were initially edited separately were then brought forward for review. Only the ones which the director approved got selected in the end.
What should you be looking forward to?
Well, one thing is for sure. You will surely be looking for VFX courses in the dying thirst to learn the craft. Other than that, look out for marvellous post-production work done by the VFX artists. Keep an eye on the second trailer and let’s see what more can we find there.
Until then stay creative and keep exploring more.