Filmmaker Vikram Bhatt who simultaneously dons the hat of director, producer, screenwriter and actor, has in the recent past explored the world of virtual production for some of his upcoming projects. Inspired by the endless possibilities and a certain level of democratization that shooting in virtual studios brings in filmmaking, Bhatt partnered with K Sera Sera Box Office Pvt. Ltd, one of the largest digital service providers, to create a state-of-art virtual production studio named Studio Virtual Worlds.
“This is available to any producer making a film. For instance you are making a small film and you cannot afford what Sanjay Leela Bhansali can afford. So Unreal Engine can do that for you. It can make the film look so big, as creating any set is possible now. So it democratizes the making process,” Vikram Bhatt told Animation Xpress in a telephonic conversation.
Studio Virtual Worlds will completely revamp the filmmaking process with new age technical innovations led by experts. The upcoming studio in Mumbai will help the producers to shape their imaginations. Pandemic actually got everyone thinking for different solutions as going out, shooting on the road, night shoot, nothing was possible.
“Epic Games and Unreal Engine have made virtual filmmaking possible. Even today, the producer has to go everywhere including the locations, sets and everywhere else. But now everything will come to the producer. In the virtual world, you can make the entire film within one studio, without any compromises,” he said.
The new age filmmaking actually saves the expenditure on traveling to different locations involving crew’s plane tickets, transport, hotel and so on. “Any outdoor shoot has logistics that costs the producers a lot of money.”
The newly-launched series Anamika (produced by Bhatt and his daughter Krishna Bhatt) starring Sunny Leone and another upcoming project have extensively made use of virtual production. They are gradually bringing everything to the studio which is profitable for the producers without making any kind of compromises in their creative vision.
“My series Anamika is 80 per cent shot on virtual production. My film Cold, which is already under production, is 100 per cent shot using virtual production. The entire film has been shot on one stage. We haven’t gone out and we don’t intend to. It’s going to be India’s first film to be entirely shot virtually. I have garnered enough experience on this,” Bhatt revealed.
Asked if this shift towards virtual production will take away jobs, the visionary director said, “You will still need the crew. It is just going to be in a different location. Those will be a completely different breed of technicians. They are the new age technicians who are going to rule the film industry and will be the ones who will bring the dream alive.”
Apart from the crew that will be required during filming, there will be just five or six other people who will be manning the entire studio.
Talking about his collaboration with K Sera Sera Group chairman Satish Panchariya, Bhatt said, “I had knocked a lot of doors to see who would be interested in this kind of a studio. Much to the credit of K Sera Sera and the chairman Satish, who in five minutes of seeing the presentation, knew the potential and the future.”
According to the actor-director, Panchariya is a pretty tech-savvy guy, who has many dome theaters across the country and he understands technology.
“These kinds of projects are projects of belief. When two people who have the same belief come together, chances are that the product will be pretty good,” Bhatt signed off.
