Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt's Brahmastra Has Over 4500 VFX Shots; Possibly The Most For Any Film Globally

Ayan Mukerji's ambitious film Brahmastra featuring real-life couple Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt released in theatres on Friday (September 9, 2022). Besides the star-studded cast, one of the highlights of this epic fantasy is its mind-blowing VFX which has got everyone talking about it.

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A huge credit to this goes to Prime Focus Ltd which made sure to envision a never-seen before cosmic universe in Indian cinema through the lens of VFX and technology. With its creative and technical teams across London, North America, and India working in synergy under the guidance of Namit Malhotra, Founder of Prime Focus Limited, Chairman and Global CEO of a seven-time Oscar-winning company DNEG.

Brahmastra was the first project during the COVID-19 pandemic to extensively use Prime Focus's incubated technology 'CLEAR' and Media ERP suit to ensure seamless date transfer of high quality shots and date security from inception to delivery.

Further, do you folks know that Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva boasts of over 4500 VFX shots in comparison to Avengers: End Game's 2400 VFX shots, making it a potential record holder for the most visual effects in any movie globally?

The magnificient shots in the film was designed by the same team from DNEG which had contributed to Oscar-winning movies like Dune, Tenet, First Man and more.

Speaking about the VFX of Brahmastra, Ayan Mukerji said, "Brahmastra is very close to my heart. The idea of Brahmastra was ploughed into my mind way before I even realized it. I grew up listening to the stories of Indian history and mythology and was always fascinated by them. I wanted to create a story that was deeply rooted in Indian spiritual history but also had modern twists and turns. Inspired by many movies that brought fantasy worlds to life, I envisioned creating the world of Brahmastra in a way that would challenge the limits of Indian cinema. Namit and his teams were an integral part of this journey and have worked hard alongside me to bring this adventure film to life. The relentless work of his team and the hard work of the entire team and cast of Brahmastra has allowed us to bring to the audience, a film like never before."

Namit Malhotra, one of the producers of Brahmastra, said, "From editing small budget projects to delivering Oscar worthy cinematic experiences, it's been quite a long and rewarding journey for us. All these experiences over the past 25 years combined with technological and VFX advancements have helped us bring Ayan's vision, Brahmastra to life - our biggest Indian project to date. I feel truly honored to be a part of such a project alongside Ayan, Karan Johar, Dharma Productions, Disney and Fox Star Studios."

He continued, "The concept of the Astras is deeply rooted in Indian mythology and immense attention to detail and research have gone into creating them for the screen. Our goal was to enable Ayan to create a first-of-its-kind Astraverse that would have the audience at the edge of their seats. This couldn't have been achieved without the unabating hard work from teams across Prime Focus, DNEG, and ReDefine. Today, I am truly proud of the work we have done with Brahmastra and I hope it sets a benchmark and inspires many filmmakers and artists to push the envelope."

In addition to this, the film was supported with on-set camera equipments and state of art sound stages. Pritam-led music and sound design studio Jam8, played an instrumental role in the epic sound effects and scores to the film.

Helmed by Ayan Mukerji, Brahmastra revolves around a Mumbai-based DJ Shiva who discovers his superpower of controlling power and sets out to protect Brahmastra, the Lord of all the weapons from the dark forces. The magnum opus also features Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan and Mouni Roy in key roles with Nagarjuna Akkineni and Shah Rukh Khan doing guest appearances.