Having a blast in movies

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">what''s common between the titles of the recently released <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">appu, </span>the blasts in the climax of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">dil se </span>where manisha koirala and shah rukh khan are blown to pieces and the butterfly scene in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">ekangi</span>? very little except that the same creative mind is behind all these visual effects."for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">appu, </span>they wanted something that was colourful, youthful and spelled love," says sam rajkumar, visual effect director. sam, who began with prasad productions in ''97 and worked in various tamil and kannada films, moved base to bangalore last april. "it is an it state and the film industry here is moving very fast," he says. till some time back moviemakers had to go to chennai for the finishing touches, including graphics and effects. "but now we are equipped for visual effects and able to achieve hollywood standards," says sam. visual effects have now become an indispensable part of filmmaking. they can, for instance, be used to give the impression of having shot abroad or create a non-existent locale. like the factory in front of the jaipur palace in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">hum saath saath hain. </span>visual effects can also put snow on brown mountains or turn dry beds to shimmering lakes. sam says he plays a big part in how a scene finally looks. "i have a say in how visual effects can complement a scene." so how does the whole thing work? "imagine a shot of an artiste falling off a building," he explains. "i shoot the building separately and the artiste in a studio against a green screen. later on the images are merged in the computer. this gives the image of a person hanging from a tall building." then there was the kannada film <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">law & order </span>which needed crowds in front of the vidhana soudha. it was an aerial shot and there was no crowd, so visual effects were used to `create'' people. this ambitious young man is hopeful that he will soon put bangalore on the ve map. "we''ll also be able to cater to international films at some point," says sam with lot of conviction. right now he''s working on <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">love you </span>where director shivamani is making his debut as an actor. </div> </div>