With technology, ‘Eega’ takes wings

"The Go-Pros really worked well because being small form-factor digicams, they could get into spaces that a convention cam couldn’t " said D. Suresh Babu of Suresh Productions

Co-founder of Makuta Effects Pete Draper, with special effects experts, looking at the props used in the film, in Banjara Hills. Photo: Satish.H

The pre-release buzz that this film about a fly (read ‘Eega’) generated for over a year as it was being canned has now dissipated, yielding to a different kind of attention. The curiosity about what the film’s storyline could be has now led people to wonder about the intricacies of how the details were showcased on the big screen.

Contrary to general expectations but quite in sync with his usual self, hot-shot director S.S. Rajamouli has gone into hibernation from the night before the release of his multi-lingual creation. This left eyebrows raised at the directorial excellence, the attention to micro-detail and the sheer audacity of a filmmaker who relied on a creature roughly 1,00,000 times smaller than a human being to carry the revenge story alone.

Among the other firsts were the use of ‘Go-Pro’ cameras, Scorpio cranes and mesh technology to get the scenes right.

“The Go-Pros really worked well because being small form-factor digicams, they could get into spaces that a convention cam couldn’t and we got some incredible angles with them,” said D. Suresh Babu of Suresh Productions, who presented it.

Even weeks before its release, producer Sai Korapati of the banner ‘Vaaraahi Chalanachitram’ and Mr. Suresh, who is also co-producer, waxed eloquent about how it would truly be a ‘never-before-in-the-Indian-film-industry’. It has 2,234 live action animation (LAA) shots. About 90 minutes of the 137-minute movie was computer graphics.

The technical aspects apart, what film buffs would not know is the intricacy of detail that went into its making.

A three-dozen strong team of animators and visualisers at Makuta Effects the Hyderabad-based company went through a special training programme designed by Ed Hooks, a globe-trotting professional stage and screen actor to teach acting theory to animators.

Co-founder of Makuta, Pete Draper, who led the special effects team said: The conception of the story by Rajamouli was so new that we wracked our brains for visuals that would show exactly how a housefly that is about a lakh times smaller than a human being, would face the villain. Showcasing emotions like anger, comedy, dance and love as coming from a fly was no joke.