Artificial Intelligence may be having its negative effects, but there are some brilliant usages that are coming up in today’s times. After Marilyn Monroe was recreated using AI on celluloid as ‘Digital Marilyn’ and presented at the South By Southwest Film Festival, better known as SXSW, now we have our very own Srijit Mukheji using AI to its best usage and bring to life Uttam Kumar. The legendary superstar passed away almost 4 decades back and by using Artificial Intelligence and VFX, Srijit Mukherji has brought to life Uttam Kumar for his new project ‘Oti Uttam’.
The starcast of ‘Oti Uttam’ consists of Anindya Sengupta, Roshni Bhattacharya, Gourab Chatterjee, and of course, the evergreen matinee idol, Uttam Kumar. Using existing footage of his films and also using AI to create scenes which were shot ever, Srijit Mukherji has created history through ‘Oti Uttam’. Fans of the superstar who’ve missed him for 4 decades onscreen will finally be able to get a new glimpse of him on the silver screens.
Srijit Mukherji recently took to social media to talk about ‘Oti Uttam’, which he describes as his labour of love. He wrote, “A film which took six years to make. A journey which saw a global pandemic and the evolution of Artificial Intelligence. Our labour of love. Our dream project. Our audacious ambition. The first of its kind in history. Oti Uttam (sic).”
It is indeed audacious to recrate the Mahanayak on screen once again. If Srijit Mukherji goes wrong in even the slightest way, audiences will tear his film apart as they would not want to remember Uttam Kumar in any bad light. So, it’s definitely going to be tough for Srijit Mukherji and team to live upto the audience’s expectations when it comes to their most favourite superstar.
To recreate Uttam Kumar onscreen, Srijit Mukherji saw over 60 films of the superstar repeatedly and sat with VFX experts and AI technologists and decided on to what to be taken from where, and how the other parts will be filled in. This was he was able to get the other actors to act in a specific way and get the screen to full perfection.
‘Oti Uttam’s trailer was released recently and it went viral all over. Even Amitabh Bachchan, who was a close friend of Uttam Kumar took to social media after watching the trailer and wrote, “The first-ever film to have a principal character made out of existing footage. A tribute to Uttam Kumar... Oti Uttam (sic).”
For the unversed, ‘Oti Uttam’ in Bengali means too good. Let’s wait and watch whether Srijit Mukherji is able to prove that bringing Uttam Kumar back to life onscreen was too good of an idea or not.
