History of Special Effects in Indian Cinema

The moving images have always surprised its viewers. Moreover, anything impossible can also be achieved by the help of special effects in the cinemas today. First Indian movie with special effect was released in the year 1937 and the name of the popular movie was “Khwaab ki duniya” directed by Vijay Bhatt. As its name suggests”Khwaab” means Dream “Duniya” means World , it a world of dreamer indeed. The special effects director of the movie was Babubhai Mestry, who was  popularly known as India’s Father of Trick Photography. He introduced some of the home grown techniques where he used dim light with black curtain as the background on which objects were given illusion of movement with the help of black thread.

                                                Babubhai Mestry –India’s Father of Trick photography.

In the 1980s India’s first computer graphics facilities came up under the leadership of Prasad Video Digital which later gave birth to Prasad EFX who imported the first film scanners and recorders to India and pioneered the Digital Image Revolution in India. The first complete computer graphic film was a telugu movie “Ammoru” in which the graphics were done by a Hollywood technician.

Lately, very highly proficient organizations in the special effects lineup have emerged in India.  With the gradual evolution of need and availability of cheap labour in Indian, Indian Film Production studios started working for some of the big production houses in Hollywood. Since the year 2000, we have many examples in Indian Cinema with extensive use of special effects, such as Koi mil gaya, Om Shanti Om, Rang De Basanti, Don, Raaz and the list is endless now. These films have been written keeping in mind the state of the art special effects.

In today’s time we cannot even think of making movie, advertisement, without using special effects it has become a part of cinema. People who are aspiring to get into film making as there career should have knowledge of special effects also.

We at Maac Kolkata  do teach our students in MAAC Chowringhee, MAAC Kankurgachi, MAAC Rashbehari, to make Digital films with special effects in it. Our students have won several awards in 24FPS Digital Film Making Category.

For more such updates stay tuned with us!!

Use of VFX in the movie BAAHUBALI

S. S. Rajamouli Directed movie Baahubali, a Telugu action movie, was the highest grosser Indian movie. INR 120 Crore budget movie earned over INR 600 Crore and became the highest grossing telugu movie of all times. Apart from an interesting story line and strong characterization with combination of the real life and reel life effect turned  Baahubali into a  mind blowing visual effect movie of its time.. The movie had one year pre-production work where in 15000 story board sketches were created which is the highest for any Indian film till today. More than 600 VFX artists worked (which includes Makuta VFX, Prasad EFX, Firefly in Hyderabad, Tau films from Malaysia etc.) for the film to create more than 90 percent visually enhanced shots. V. Srinivas Mohan, a National Award Winner headed as the VFX supervisor. The film boast of 90 percent Computer Generated Imagery works which accounts for 2500 VFX shots. Makuta VFX was chosen as the main visual effects studio and was responsible for more than 50 percent of the CGI in the film.


This is the VFX breakdown of the Movie Baahubali- The Beginning by Makuta VFX:

In this shot Shivgami is saving the baby, the water has been enhanced by VFX generated waterfalls. This famous shot was originally shot with a bottle of mineral water in Shivgami’s hand above the water.

This heart dropping shot in which Prabhas is hanging from the rock was actually VFX generated. Originally Prabhas was lifted by crane to give a shot of rock climbing.

While we saw Prabhas hoping and jumping over the branches in the jungle on big screen, in reality Prabhas was just hoping over a giant log with green screen in the background.


Feeling very honored to say that we at, MAAC Chowringhee, MAAC Kankurgachi, MAAC Rashbehari welcomed Mr. Sanath P. C., the founder and VFX supervisor by profession of The Firefly Studios, whose special effects are also seen in the Movie “Baahubali – The Beginning”, visited our center in the month of July 2015. A grand Seminar was organized by our director, Mr. Naveen Choudhary in honour of Mr. Sanath P.C so that he can discuss and shre his experience with students of Maac Kolkata. He discussed many things with us regarding the making of Baahubali and Magadheera.

He ended his discussion with a note of appreciation saying“A big thanks for inviting me. It was wonderful to spend time with MAAC  students and the team here” – Mr, Sanath P. C. We felt  truly blessed.