Seema Sinha (BOMBAY TIMES; May 4, 2014)

Some of Hollywood’s top studios are involved in the making of the film Kochadaiiyaan — The Legend that has Rajinikanth playing a superhero. He will be seen in the country’s first ever film using photorealistic performance capture technology.

 Rajinikanth, who performs a dual role with Deepika Padukone (paired opposite the younger character), was required to wear a body suit with track points on all the joint areas while infrared rays tracked every movement, which was then recreated on screen. This was coordinated by the same team at Centroid Studios that worked with Brad Pitt for World War Z. Sources say that Rajinikanth’s every motion was captured digitally on screen, which was then animated.

 CounterPunch Studios from Los Angeles, who were behind Beverly Hills Chihuahua, were engaged for facial capture technology together with Faceware Technologies, who have worked on The Mummy 3 and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The facial expressions were captured with a technology called markerless facial capturing, which deployed a head-mounted camera on each actor, including Rajinikanth, to capture their subtle facial movements.

 Says Rajinikanth, “I don’t know much about this technology, but it is definitely different. We cannot explain how hard it was and how everything was created.”

 Adds director Soundarya Rajnikanth Ashwin, “It was amazing to see my father’s every move, gesture and expression on a screen in animated form. The whole process was very technical, with wires, electrodes, technicians, black body suits, headgear, chroma key screens everywhere — it lacked colour and it was also very difficult to see how the film would turn out. Once we motion captured the talent, everything was created afterwards around that.” The film also features Jackie Shroff and R Sarath Kumar.

 Kochadaiiyaan — The Legend, produced by Eros International and Media One Global Entertainment, releases May 9.