#GOAT #VenkatPrabhu #Vijay #ThalapathyVijay #Thalapathy #SiddharthaNuni #DOP #YuvanShankarRaja #FilmiBeatTamil
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00:00There is a fight scene with a longer duration, so I can tell you about how that portion worked.
00:05When we were shooting the climax, I've never seen so much of blue mat in my entire life.
00:10First ever, you know, we were surrounded by blue, I'm like, crickets, you know.
00:15So it was like, it was a great experience.
00:21You've worked in Hollywood films, so how did that experience, the techniques used in this?
00:28When I did my Master's in Cinematography in Europe, they use a lot of natural,
00:33they're mostly emulating what the world around you gives you.
00:39That's when the image becomes real.
00:45Mohan sir and Vijesa are face-off.
00:48And the sequence, we shot it in an old spinning mill in Pondicherry.
00:56This was constructed in the 1600s or something like that, 1800s, around that time.
01:01Now, back then there were no lights, right?
01:04So morning people used to come there, do their work and go back in the night, right?
01:08Where do you light?
01:10The light comes from the sun.
01:14If I'm able to just explore that and bring it, make it come, you know, just capture it,
01:21that itself is beauty.
01:23There are de-aging factors and a lot of CG works and VFX works.
01:27When it comes to a film that has a lot of them,
01:30there are challenges in this determined time period.
01:34In the pre-production stage and the production stage,
01:36we're constantly engaging with each other, saying that, okay, how much time is this going to take?
01:41And obviously, we can't take into consideration everybody's requirements.
01:45And that's how it can be cheap.
01:46And that's how it can be cheap.
01:48One India Film Week Tamil Nadu, greetings to all of you.
01:54Today, in our cinema special interview, we have with us,
01:57the cinematographer of the film, Goat,
01:59who has released it in theatres and is celebrating it with every frame.
02:05Mr. Siddhartha Nuni is here with us.
02:07Let's talk about a lot of things.
02:08Welcome.
02:08Greetings, sir.
02:08Greetings.
02:09Sir, when you went to see the film for the first time,
02:12how was it?
02:13When you saw it with the audience's reaction.
02:16So, on September 5th, I went to watch it in AGS Madurai.
02:22And the previous night, till four o'clock, I was at the studio.
02:26Three o'clock, I think, I was at the studio and working on the Netflix delivery card I was working.
02:32And literally, I woke up and just went to the theatre straight with some friends and stuff like that.
02:38But till the day of the release, we generally watched the film at the eye level, basically.
02:44But I'm shooting also, the camera is always at the eye level.
02:46You know, we're always flaming at the eye level.
02:48But for the first time, you know, it's also the image is very close to you.
02:52So you're looking at certain details here and there.
02:55But release, it's like I watched, first time I'm watching on the big screen.
03:01We realized, oh my gosh, this looks so, like, you know, so nice and so beautiful.
03:05The first time I became an audience for the film and watching it along with, you know,
03:10so many people and enjoying the film was a beautiful experience.
03:14You've been talking a lot from the start to the end of the film.
03:18Let's start with the climax.
03:21The climax is a cricket stadium and the fight scene is a fight scene with a very long duration.
03:30Can you tell us about how that portion worked?
03:34So, the climax, we had to, it obviously happens at the cricket stadium, J-POP cricket stadium.
03:40So we had to obviously shoot in multiple, you know, places.
03:45And we had to use CG and also, you know, stock shots from the match.
03:51So it's like a mix of so many things that was happening.
03:54So we had to shoot the sequence over a period of time.
03:57And first one we shot in Trivandrum cricket stadium.
04:00And then shoot in J-POP.
04:02And then obviously the climax sequence, which happens on the rooftop,
04:06was shot with green mat, you know, all around.
04:10And when we were shooting the climax, I was, I've never seen so much of blue mat in my entire life.
04:16First ever, you know, we were surrounded by blue.
04:18I'm like, cricket stadium.
04:20So it was like, it was a great experience, you know, shooting it.
04:25Because we had to do a lot of planning.
04:29Because it's a mixed reality.
04:32To make the audience believe that it is happening real time,
04:36you had to be very meticulous with the planning and the execution.
04:40So many people are working together, which is a production design, camera, the CG department,
04:46you know, and obviously with the, you know, the guidance of the captaincy of the,
04:51you know, director.
04:52So this Mr. Vickit Prabhusa.
04:54So it was like, it was a beautiful endeavor.
04:57And I haven't done VFX on such a large scale before as a cinematographer.
05:02And, you know, being a part of it and executing it so much so that audience is
05:07able to enjoy it, has been a quite beautiful thing.
05:28Yeah, yeah, 100%.
05:29Because the fighting and close combat, right, between, you know,
05:35Gandhi and Jeevan are having the final face off.
05:38So it is definitely a challenging experience.
05:41Also, because we're using VFX, you know, face replacement is one thing,
05:45but we can't do everything with that.
05:47We had to make the audience believe that they're actually fighting,
05:51which is why what we have done is that we use long lensing, which is basically,
05:55you know, one of my cameraman, one of my operator was on
05:59145mm and the other, the gimbal was an 85mm handheld.
06:04So what happens is that the other subject becomes very blurry.
06:07So Doop becomes very blurry.
06:09And so that the, you know, if Sir is playing Gandhi's character,
06:14we're framing for Gandhi.
06:16And when Sir is playing Jeevan, we're more focused on Jeevan.
06:20So it's like the stunt double becomes, you know, just a blurry image.
06:26So this makes it very intimate also.
06:28We're keeping the action very close to the subject.
06:31So we had to use multiple things like this.
06:33We also use a phantom camera, which is a high speed camera.
06:36So Lola VFX, who did the, you know, face replacement and were very helpful
06:42because in the Madhuri, extremely complex sequences with,
06:45we were shooting almost at 300 frames per second.
06:48It's a very high speed and face replacement at such a high speed
06:53and with such good resolution is obviously a challenge.
06:56So Lola did such a great job.
06:58Obviously, I have to commend our VFX team led by Mr. Hariharasudhan.
07:04They did a fantastic job.
07:28So for 17 year old character, we used deep fake AI.
07:35So one of the requirements from CG was that we shouldn't have overlap.
07:40The character with the other, for example, Mohan sir and 17 year old
07:45Jeevan's character was played by a boy.
07:50And we obviously merged Vijay sir's younger look with the real character,
07:5650-50.
07:58We had created that.
07:59So what their requirement was that let's not overlap the subject
08:02because the computer doesn't know what to take.
08:05Because they're very new technology.
08:07And I don't think anybody has done this before.
08:10They use deep fake AI or technology, initial stages.
08:16Because one thing to do is that to get the 360 degrees information of the face,
08:21but we don't have anything like that.
08:23So for this, we had to, you know,
08:26so I think we also used post-production techniques like bleach bypass and so little where,
08:33you know, which is a very film technique to,
08:35in order to make the plasticity of the AI image to go away.
08:40If you look at AI images online,
08:42there's a certain kind of softness to the skin because there's no texture.
08:46Right.
08:46So to create the texture, we had to use bleach bypass and then film looks,
08:50film looks and made the image very grungy and,
08:54you know, very film like.
08:56So in Jeevan's character, you had to use AI a lot.
09:0117 year old Jeevan.
09:02Yeah, 17 year old.
09:03So in that, in which portion, in which frame was it very challenging?
09:09Was it challenging to set in this place?
09:11I think the whole thing was quite complex.
09:13It wasn't like, but I think it was a beautiful teamwork, you can say.
09:18Because if someone's done it, we already know, okay, this is exactly how we do it.
09:23But we were also experimenting.
09:25I think VB sir, I have to really, you know, appreciate VB sir for sticking by to it.
09:30You're like, we'll do it this way.
09:33And trusting you to say that, okay, we will do it.
09:36So the trust, I really appreciate it.
09:39I'm thankful for that.
09:48I think it's basically,
10:16see, we do a lot of handheld work, right?
10:19The camera, we're not, so one of the grammar, the grammar of the film was a mix of
10:25Family Man meets, you know, Family Man web series, right?
10:29The Family Man meets Mission Impossible meets Jason Bourne, Bourne Identity.
10:34So Bourne Identity and Mission Impossible are one of my, both of my favorite series.
10:39And we wanted, you know, Gandhi to be a very, like a common man.
10:45Like even though VJ sir was playing it, you know, not make it very, you know, away from,
10:50you know, the world that we were setting the film in.
10:52And I think that's what is working right now.
10:54Because, you know, it's very relatable.
10:57It could be a person who's living, you know, next door neighbor, Madhuri.
11:03So that's how we had treated it.
11:04But we also made it very edgy and stylized with the action sequences and the songs.
11:11To keep it, the cinematic, you know, moments were there.
11:15So it was like, so for the action sequences, we went very handheld.
11:19To create that synergy, that, you know, that very, you know,
11:23because the camera becomes a part of the action sequence and very close to the combat.
11:28So I think that helped to, you know, to build the tension,
11:32build the world, build the action sequence in a better way.
11:36VP sir said that he does a lot of improvisation on the spot.
11:41He also said in an interview that he completed that mission in Thailand
11:48and jumped from the building in a parachute on the spot.
11:51How would it be if you jumped from a building in a parachute?
11:53That was the decision he made on the spot.
11:54So when you get that kind of improvisation,
11:57how did you technically equip it?
12:00That's what it's, see, whenever an idea comes,
12:03first of all, we discuss, okay, how do we do this?
12:05There's also like, it's filmmaking is a teamwork.
12:09It's like the stunt coordinator.
12:10So obviously the idea can, you know, is brought forward by some,
12:17and the director approves it or like, you know, comes up with it.
12:20And then we all come together and discuss, how do we do this?
12:24Right.
12:25There's a stunt coordinator, you know, Dilip Master was, you know,
12:28stunt coordinator for our project.
12:30And there's a production designer.
12:33And then there's a CG supervisor.
12:35And also, you know, and the cinematography department.
12:38All these people come together and, you know, understand, okay, how do we do this?
12:43So when an idea comes in, it's like, it's run by all of us.
12:47And we all of us decide, okay, let's do it this way.
12:50You know, should we use employee CG for this?
12:52Or should we shoot real location?
12:54Okay, if we shoot real location, how we do this?
12:57So all this has to be discussed.
12:59And yeah, most of the film kind of comes together because of that.
13:04The first time Jeevan and Gandhi met, it was at the bridge in Russia.
13:10And then there was a stunt sequence following that on a bike.
13:12In the climax, when Jeevan and Gandhi are in a fight, they are opposite to each other.
13:18And Jeevan's face looks like he's blurring a little bit.
13:23Whoever is doing it in real life has their own face.
13:25But in the bike scene, the father is sitting in front and the son is sitting behind.
13:30So when it's like that, how did you bring it there?
13:33So we used equipment called Russian arm and suit.
13:37So Vijay sir was actually riding the bike.
13:39So we shot that sequence for four days.
13:42So two days when the sir played Gandhi and two days was Jeevan's character.
13:48So we filmed it real time.
13:50We shot it actually on location in Moscow, in the streets of Moscow for four days.
13:55And what we used was Russian arm and suit.
13:58Like Fast and the Furious and movies like that use this equipment.
14:03It's like a very sturdy jimmy jib which is mounted on a car.
14:10So basically, if the bike is on the road, the jimmy jib is facing the bike.
14:19We are inside the car and there's a very able stunt driver who's riding the car
14:26in extremely high speeds.
14:27We're talking about 60, 70, 80.
14:31And the road was almost just 15 feet wide with cars on both sides.
14:35And we stop the traffic from one end to the other.
14:39And this guy just used to belt.
14:42And I was on the monitor with the operator next to me.
14:46So we'd always rehearse.
14:47Okay, from here to here, the car goes.
14:50And then what is the action and how does the camera move?
14:55So, and we rehearse it a couple of times.
14:57We understand that, okay, this is the movement.
14:59After that, we go with, you know, so it gets on and we just do it.
15:03And it was quite an exciting four days of my life because we got to do something very cool.
15:09And that too in real location with such high speeds was quite something.
15:17In the movie, the whole journey, what was the scene that took the longest duration?
15:22How much effort did you have to put into that?
15:26See, a lot of the sequences were very long.
15:28For example, that Srinidhi's, you know, death scene, right?
15:32It happened, we shot in Kishkindha.
15:34Okay.
15:34And Kishkindha, it's broken, like it used to be a very famous theme park at one point.
15:40And now it's completely broken.
15:42When I heard of the scene and we went, we were taken to Kishkindha for the location,
15:47we were like, okay, where do we stage this?
15:49Initially, we were thinking maybe in another place.
15:52But when we saw this, we realized this is where it has to be because, you know,
15:57the sequence is very, you know, very strange, you know,
16:01because you have Jeevan kind of like going really wild.
16:04It's like a psychotic.
16:06Very, very, you know, odd sequence, like odd moment, right, in the film.
16:12So it's a broken theme park.
16:15But it's a, you know, the whole sequence is set there.
16:19The one that very playfully Sir plays it.
16:21And also it's very serious.
16:24So because it's a broken fun park, right?
16:28So that's the mood that we tried to recreate.
16:31And I mean, we used to shoot the scene.
16:34We shot it for one long day, actually, and from morning to evening.
16:40I think we shot two days.
16:42I don't remember now, but definitely it was one of the most fun shoots of the film
16:52because of the complexity of that scene, because it changes, it transforms.
16:57It's a lot of transformation.
16:58And generally, you know, scenes like this, you could have shot it very dull light
17:04because it's a very sinister moment.
17:06But we went for a very, you know, beautiful looking light.
17:10There's yellow, there's happy colors and stuff like that
17:13because of the strangeness of the scene.
17:16And I think it's worked quite well.
17:29That's what it had to be, because it's also being very playful
17:32because it's a place where people come to have fun.
17:36It's like some kids when they do know, they catch one spider or something
17:41and like, you know, try to, you know, so it's a little dark moment.
17:46But, you know, the way that whole thing plays out also has an element of, you know, fun.
17:52He's having fun killing the girl.
17:55That's the whole scene, the whole thing about.
17:58So being in a theme park, but it's a broken theme park, right?
18:02And then you have this thing where people have fun to go around,
18:06but actually there is something dark happening there.
18:08So I think it's in a meta world.
18:12It goes into a layer deeper because of that.
18:15And also the lighting wise also kept it very, you know, bright,
18:20like, you know, very lit and so that the yellow pops up.
18:23Yellow is a very happy color, right?
18:26If you look at color theory, each color has a certain kind of,
18:30you know, our mind reacts to color in a different way.
18:34If, for example, if you see red, red could signify life.
18:37Red could also signify something, danger, right?
18:41So that's why our traffic signals have red in them because red is danger.
18:48For example, orange is considered to be like a knowledge,
18:51is the significance of orange.
18:54Whereas green is life, right?
18:56So if you look at that scene, there's green in the background, which is life.
19:02Basically, it's happening in the middle of some trees.
19:05Background trees are called trees when they are green.
19:07Green to greenery when they talks about life.
19:10Yellow when they talks about joy, happiness, right?
19:13Which is the yellow is the color of the, you know, the spinning thing.
19:19On the right.
19:20So it's like, yeah, so it's like a juxtaposition.
19:22But in all of this, this brokenness, it's a broken theme park.
19:26So it's, it's like a juxtaposition of brokenness versus life.
19:29So it's a battle between brokenness and life and joy.
19:34So I think, I think it's worked out quite well is what I feel.
19:47Hollywood film, we all have this idea that Hollywood, okay, they're like,
19:51you know, they'll use hundreds of lights and all of that.
19:53When I worked on Life of Pi, I observed Claudio Miranda, who's like, you know, Oscar winning
20:00DOP.
20:01And if you look at, you know, we were shooting in Pondicherry.
20:05The first day of the shoot was in a church.
20:08The sequence where the young boy, young Pi walks into the church and talks to the father.
20:13Now, Hollywood most of the time is trying to emulate natural light.
20:18So similarly to that, the classroom sequences also, I remember only one light was used in
20:24the classroom sequence.
20:25Sometimes there were no lights used.
20:27So it is something that I was amazed by.
20:30I'm like, oh, like, so I realized also, you know, when I did my master's in cinematography
20:36in Europe, they use a lot of natural light, mostly emulating what the world around you
20:43gives you.
20:45Upper one, that's when the image becomes real.
20:48Right.
20:49That's when light, light is always available around.
20:52It's the most ample, even in darkness.
20:58If you go in the night, you go out, there's moonlight.
21:00There is like, you know, street lights.
21:02So there is beauty all around us.
21:04Right.
21:05For example, in the building, it's been constructed by an architect.
21:09An architect is also an artist.
21:11Right.
21:12So, for example, in the pre-climax sequence, when Mohan sir and Vijay sir face off.
21:19And the sequence, we shot it in a broken, it's an old spinning mill in Pondicherry.
21:27Okay.
21:27This was constructed in the 1600s or something like that, 1800s, around that time.
21:32Now, back then there were no lights.
21:34Right.
21:35So morning people used to come there, do their work and go back in the night.
21:38Right.
21:39How, where do you light?
21:41The light comes from the sun.
21:42Okay.
21:43So the whole mill was constructed with the sun path.
21:47Okay.
21:48Right.
21:49Sun rises at a certain angle, you know, goes midway and then sets in the west.
21:55So they constructed the, they put the glass in such a way that there's ample sunlight
22:01throughout the day.
22:02So when we shot in that location, we hardly used any lights.
22:06We shot the whole thing with just one light for the, you know, for the artists and the
22:13background only if there was a little bit of darkness, whatever light we could use.
22:17But the rest of it, if the long, the big, strong sunbeams were accentuated with smoke.
22:23Okay.
22:24So most of that sequence was shot with natural light.
22:27So I'm a big proponent of using natural light because I believe, you know, the world has
22:32so much to offer, the light of the world is so beautiful.
22:36So I want to, for example, Moscow also.
22:39Moscow has a certain tone, you know, which I can't replicate.
22:44If I'm able to just explore that and bring it, make it come, you know, just capture it.
22:51Okay.
22:51That itself is beauty, is what I believe in.
22:54And the sun of Moscow is different from the sun of, you know, because the angle at which
22:58the sun hits in Moscow, because it's the northern hemisphere, a little bit more norther
23:02than us.
23:02So sun comes at a certain angle.
23:04It's always at a, you know, northern hemisphere or angular pole.
23:09Whereas India, it's a little bit closer to the equator.
23:12Sun is a little toppish.
23:13Okay, warmer, we have warmer light.
23:15Also the textures, like, you know, we have a certain kind of, you know, the color temperature
23:18of Moscow is colder compared to, you know, what we have here.
23:22So if you're able to capture that and present it as it is, you know, and obviously,
23:28we have the tools in post-production, like DI and, you know, CG, where we can enhance
23:32it to a more palatable or more stylized version or a stylized version we can present it.
23:40But if you're able to capture it in its essence, I think there's a lot of beauty in it.
23:44Yeah.
23:44That's very nice.
23:58Definitely, there are challenges.
24:20But I think if you have a good team, like there's obviously, we're asking people, okay,
24:25can we do this?
24:26Because if someone in the teams, every team has their own requirements.
24:31Like, for example, lighting, I need like an hour or, you know, whichever, or a couple
24:36of hours based on the sequence.
24:39In the same way, CG requires a certain kind of team.
24:41The CG had started in September last year.
24:43Okay.
24:44Right?
24:44It wouldn't have happened if we started like even halfway through the film.
24:48So the groundwork starts much before.
24:50Okay.
24:51Right?
24:51So there's a pre-production stage.
24:53The production stage, we're constantly engaging with each other, saying that, okay, how much
24:58time is this going to take?
25:00And obviously, we can't take into consideration everybody's requirements.
25:03And that's how it can be achievable.
25:05Yeah.
25:05So nice.
25:06This is a little bit away from GOAT.
25:10Before this, you worked in Captain Muller.
25:13Arun Maheshwaran, the director, his working style is entirely different.
25:16We were able to see a lot of handheld shots in it.
25:19So, after working there, what is the difference between a film like Captain Muller, which
25:26has a lot of handheld shots, and a film like GOAT?
25:30See, it depends on the grammar of the film.
25:32Okay.
25:32Like, before we start the film, we do something called pre-production.
25:36We discuss, the director and, you know, the cinematographer, and the production designer,
25:42we, you know, along with the stunt coordinator, all of us come together and understand how
25:47do we see this film?
25:49Okay.
25:50Together.
25:50When Captain Muller happened, you know, Arun's take was that we wanted it to be a very classic
25:58European framing with a South American style handheld work.
26:02Okay.
26:03City of God, Madhuri handheld work, but in a very classic, you know, framing.
26:07Okay.
26:08Like, you know, we have this classic wide shots, but in a very handheld kind of it.
26:12That's what's the grammar that we went with.
26:15Kept the lighting very natural.
26:16Use the beautiful atmosphere of Kutralam, you know, and use smoke and, you know, fire
26:22and all these things.
26:23When it came to this film, it was the grammar of the film was defined early on.
26:29Where, okay, how do we see this world?
26:32You know, how do we present, you know, this film?
26:36And we realized that, you know, we wanted Gandhi to be very relatable to the audience.
26:41So that's how, but we also wanted a very stylized film, right?
26:45Like a Hollywood action thriller Madhuri.
26:48So it was like Mission Impossible and Bone Identity, Bone series were my favorite films
26:54from before.
26:55So we brought in that grammar and, you know, it became a rounded with family man kind of,
27:01you know, look and feel, you know, for the everyday life.
27:05You know, if you look at the Thailand portions, very natural, very, you know, as of the camera
27:10is just following a family.
27:12That kind of mood.
27:13So it was like family man meets Mission Impossible meets Bone Identity.
27:18So the action sequences were all shot in a very Jason Bone, Bone Identity kind of feel
27:24with the stylized nature of Mission Impossible, the sophistication of Mission Impossible.
27:28Okay.
27:44Gautam sir is very precise.
27:46He's very, he knows exactly what he wants.
27:51He just comes to the set fully prepared.
27:54And we're just executing.
27:55Obviously, the world building, the lighting and everything is done.
27:59And so it's like Gautam sir comes and sees like, okay, can we do this?
28:02And we just execute it.
28:03It's very quick and it's done through.
28:05Arun is more like, it's, he has the plan in his head.
28:11And then we just, he discusses, he talks about, okay, how do we stage the scene?
28:16Okay.
28:16One wide and then like closes and stuff like that.
28:19It initially takes a little bit of time, but after a point, we kind of understand, okay,
28:22this is what happens.
28:23So we're like, you know, going through it.
28:26VP sir is like, you know, very chill.
28:28He's pretty easy, easy to work with.
28:30He comes and we discuss and how do we stage the scene.
28:34He discusses it beforehand.
28:34He's the coolest director.
28:35He's very chill.
28:36Yeah.
28:36Okay.
28:38So nice.
28:54You're welcome.
28:54Thank you so much.