From Tigers to Panjurli: VFX Supervisor KV Sanjit On Animating Faith And Fury In 'Kantara: Chapter 1'

Rishab Shetty’s Kantara: Chapter 1 performs a delicate dance between enchantment and realism. The prequel to the 2022 Kannada film grounds its roots in the Tulu traditions of coastal Karnataka but delivers the message with a spectacle on screen — through its visuals, sound, and intricate plotting. 

An important, admired aspect of this world-building is its dazzling visual effects (VFX). From its use of fire to depict the fury of the daivas (Tulu demigods Panjurli and Guliga form the film’s essence) and animals that have rich characters of their own, it’s hard to imagine the film without its stunning, immersive visual effects. 

Scripted for Success

K.V. Sanjit, the VFX supervisor of the film, unpacks the secret behind the acclaim in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India. "The effects are appreciated because VFX is not added to enhance any shot. It is written into the script," he says, recalling Shetty's vivid narration of the prequel. "The product you see on screen is written on paper itself. When he narrated the script, I knew it was going to be something out of the world for Indian cinema. His narration was like watching a film."

The narration also made Sanjit immediately note the film’s scale. Matching its ambitions meant exhaustive planning and commitment. This included religiously sticking to a schedule of filming, editing and VFX work. “From the outset, we assumed that we'd have to work with 3000 VFX shots,” he says. “We couldn't wait for the entire movie to be complete to do the VFX. So, we planned to do it simultaneously as per the schedules.”

Sanjit credits Shetty, director of photography Arvind S. Kashyap, and the producers behind Hombale Films in making this efficient system work. “I have never gotten no as an answer to anything from them. That was the biggest miracle for me. This freedom transformed work into immense pleasure,” Sanjit says. His research for the film included reading material about Tulu culture, local legends, the Western Ghats, and multiple viewings of the original Kantara film to retain the finer details.

The Studio's Vision

The supervisor worked with around 28 studios in India — MPC, Zebu FX, Red Chillies, Envision VFX, Identical Brains, FutureWorks, Astra Studios, NY VFXwaala, Deccan Dreams, Viskefi, Little Black Star, Knack, Spectra, Binary Circus, Phantom FX and DTM to name a few — to work on the film’s visual effects, divvying the work according to each studio’s strength.  

“The creatures, for instance, were assigned to MPC, Zebu, Viskefi and Astra. They did a fantastic job. The Panjurli fire (the Panjurli daiva takes the form of fire in the forests of Kantara early on in the film) was done by Red Chillies, and NYVFXwaala, a pioneer in war sequences, handled war in the film along with FutureWorks, Envision and Identical Brains.” 

Taming the Tiger

The tiger, or huli as he is referred to in Kannada in the film, forms an integral part of the prequel’s theme — a human versus nature conflict. The huli’s connection with Berme (Shetty’s character in the film) makes for some of the most striking scenes in the prequel.

The idea was to make the tiger look rooted to the Western Ghats, but with a divine touch. “If you increase the size (of the tiger) even a little bit, it becomes a Siberian tiger,” Sanjit says. The huli thus went through several iterations in terms of its size, eyes, whiskers, mane, muscular systems, and tonality. “As per the anatomy and characteristics of the cat family, they [the studios] matched everything, but Rishab was specific about how the tiger should look, walk and turn. The walk had to be majestic. The tiger is a God here.”

One of the most challenging shots of the film was also one that involved the tiger; a shot in the climax, where the animal jumps out of a blazing fire, required the collaborative effort of three studios in charge of three different elements: the background, fire and tiger, respectively.

“I had to get the output of the background to Studio A. Once the animation of the tiger's greyscale was done, I’d go back to Studio B for fire simulation. If it wasn’t matched properly, it wouldn’t look like the tiger is touching the fire. The tiger has to then be lit up according to the fire by Studio C.”

It was a formidable challenge, but one that was worth the pain and effort, Sanjit smiles. “Even if one frame got corrupted, I'd have to go to all three studios to do it again.”