A VFX expert, Jayant Hadke, talks about what drives him to make magic happen onscreen in Indian cinema
Jayant Hadke is a known name in special effects in Hindi cinema today. He attributes this rare success to the myriad questions he grappled with whenever he watched movies with special effects. His fascination for visual effects made him study and put it to use in a way that would help him weave magic into films.
Born and raised in Mulund, an eastern suburb of Mumbai, Hadke stepped into the world of cinema in 1997 when special effects were just beginning to make inroads into the film industry. Hadke, who is creative director and head of VFX at the iconic Famous Studios, used his time there to understand the challenges presented by advancements in visual effects, using his expertise in films such as Shaadi Ke Side Effects, Orange Blossom, Bhediya, Natsamrat, Lokmanya Ek Yugpurush and others. His decision to turn his passion for computer designing into a career in the film industry got its share of negative scrutiny from his parents. “They did not think that computers were linked to Bollywood. I wanted to do something big and it became a driving passion.”
Hadke is a hands-on technician who swears by a continuous upgradation of skills. He travels across various studios of the world, learning visual effects technologies that world cinema is currently using. “The new technology is LED walls which create amazing backgrounds. Films are evolving beyond imagination due to new visual effects technologies. It is important for us to see how visual effects can be diversified into different things,” says Hadke. For about eight months, he worked in a studio in Los Angeles, interacting with Wolverine’s Hugh Jackman and the Wachowski sisters of Matrix fame. “They know a tremendous amount about Indian mythology and they were using concepts from it in their films. It was an eye opener.”
A lover of action figures, Hadke’s office mirrors that passion. All over the room are figures of superheroes curated from across the world. Many of them are limited edition pieces. These figures, he confesses, are his inspiration to create special effects characters. As the visual effects industry grew, he started using these figures to explain to clients all that he wanted to create. “The action heroes are my favourites. I could not afford these toys as a child, so now wherever I travel, I pick up an action toy for myself. I invest a lot of money in these toys,” says Hadke. Every figure, he says, has a character and nurtures him to work at his creative best.
Although visual effects have been in use for a while now, advanced technologies that have come in give them a much wider scope. Increasingly, in a post-Covid 19 world, many of Mumbai’s A-list actors are not keen on travelling to faraway locations for shooting. Therefore, filmmakers have started using visual effects to recreate places, backgrounds and situations. “Visual effects have a solution for every problem. India is very high up in using visual effects on the global cinema front. We are pitted against the best in international cinema. The challenge in India is the financial size of projects. Hollywood is more investment-intensive compared to Hindi cinema. These new technologies need a new set of artistes when the virtual production is created,” says Hadke who also makes ad films for Famous Studios nowadays.
(This appeared in the print edition as "Imagining The Impossible")