Vidharth is on a roll with several films. His next release is Aal, produced by Vidiyal Raju and JSK Film Corporation. The director of the film, newbie Anand Krishnan, reveals how he adopted Time Freeze technology for the first time in the country.
Aal is a thriller based on the happenings in one day in a man’s life, when he runs into strangers who begin controlling him. The hero is made to run all over the city as per the instructions he receives. The scenes were shot with three hidden cameras in busy areas of Chennai.
Anand Krishnan, who assisted Susi Ganesan earlier, discloses that for an important climax scene, he used Time Freeze technology. Anand says, “Several films with big budgets, for instance Boys or Vishwaroopam, have used Time Slice technology,which shows many people or things moving in slow motion. Nearly 60 to 100 cameras are used and CG is involved. It’s widely used in cinema. But since I didn’t have such a big budget, I used Time Freeze technology. It’s highly economical and gives the same effect. To my knowledge, no other Indian film has it.”
The shooting took three days, after Anand held a training camp for one week for the forty junior artistes involved in the shot. Says Anand, “Forty actors were suspended in the air with ropes, or supported from below, to be shown flying around, to highlight the impact of a commando operation. Time Freeze is shot with just one camera. It’s very tough, since all 40 actors had to remain frozen for three minutes, as the camera moved between them. The scene will highlight the aftermath of a commando operation in detail.” Only the blood and gore were later added with CG.
Though Vidharth was not part of that particular scene, the movie has been no less challenging for him. The actor says with a laugh, “I have now seen all parts of Chennai running on foot. Usually we check our performance on monitors after each shot. But here, since we shot with hidden cameras as I ran, I only got to see it all during the dubbing stage.”
Vidharth is thrilled that he got to look dapper in a suit in the film, for the first time. Aal’s music has been composed by Johan who teams up with Vidharth again after Kollaikaaran.