The first glimpse of Ranbir Kapoor-starrer 'Ramayana' in the form of a trailer titled 'Rama' didn't exactly blow everyone away. The debates to that end continue on social media, with some folks trying to "school" others on the difference between good and bad VFX. However, on Saturday, no one expected an industry insider, and a superstar to boot, to offer a sensible take on how to approach visual effects, and bring up the importance of debating it with awareness, in a lengthy social media note.
While recalling the good ol' days as a 11-year-old kid when he fell in love with big-budget Hollywood movies like "Back to the Future" and "Star Wars", and being enamoured with the VFX in them, to the point of even buying a book about Industrial Light and Magic (the company behind the "Star Wars" movies that George Lucas gave birth to), Hrithik Roshan addressed the need to know about why some VFX sequences look the way they do.
While not denying the existence of "bad VFX" and that sometimes it's "painful to watch" the same even in his own movies (he mentions "War" had good VFX but "War 2" had logical and time-related issues), Hrithik wrote that different films have different VFX styles, and how important it is to know which is which.
He added that it "takes thousands of our artistes working round the clock for multiple years to bring VFX-heavy films to life, so the least we can do is bash them with some better awareness! It's like in comics or animation - some prefer ANIME style, but that's not as realistic as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. You can like one style over the other, but neither is wrong. In the same way, VFX movies can be Photorealistic (invisible), VFX where you shouldn’t notice the VFX at all. Like in big-scale action films like James Bond, Die Hard, War 1, etc. OR the makers can adopt storytelling-stylised VFX, which is more magical, with sometimes enhanced colours, non-realistic lighting, and visuals that purposefully resemble beautiful paintings. Like in movies like 300, Lord of the Rings, etc., then there are others like Hyperreal/Enhanced Reality - think Superhero films and high concept films like Inception... Fantastical Realism (Hybrid)... I also enjoy Surreal/Experimental VFX where they break all reality and logic intentionally. It has abstract forms and impossible geometry. [sic]"
Hrithik explained that "bad VFX" is when the movie promises 'photorealism' but doesn't deliver. "Even a small lapse in physics/gravity can then destroy the entire illusion. Or the promise is of storybook style, but they fail in making it beautiful enough, artistic enough or divine enough, and so fail to engage. But to say that the storybook style is not looking photorealistic - isn't fair. Cause it's not meant to be. AND you can't criticise the maker just because he has chosen one style while you prefer another style. That's not fair. So sometimes when you say 'bad VFX.' Maybe it’s just a style you didn’t expect? [sic]"
The actor concluded his note by suggesting that instead of asking "Is it real?" next time, ask, "Is it right for the story?" or if it makes one feel "what the maker intended."
