‘Aadu 3’: VFX director Jishnu Dev on how VFX and CGI complimented the narrative

VFX director Jishnu Dev discusses how CGI enhances storytelling in Aadu 3, revealing the film's impressive visual effects.

When Jishnu Dev, the VFX director of Aadu 3, mentions scenes in the film which are CGI and VFX, one cannot help but marvel at how real they are. “It is the biggest compliment for a VFX team: that one can’t tell what is real and what is not,” he says. Aadu 3, directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas and released on March 19, continues the story of Shaji Pappan and his crew as they embark on their latest adventure.

As the film, a fantasy-comedy, traverses back and forth between the past, present and future, we see Shaji Pappan (Jayasurya), his crew and some new characters in new situations. This includes time travel, which takes Shaji to the 1700s as Maharaja Padmanabhan Thampuran. With the movie’s crisscrossing timelines, we see changes in the ‘location’, most of which, Jishnu says, are CGI-generated. 

“The king’s palace, for instance, may look like a set but only a small part of it. The rest of it is computer-generated. Similarly, Koma Kurup’s (Saiju Kurup) sequence is entirely CGI. We used an animatronic horse to simulate the movement, and then ‘made’ the horse. Sulthan Azam Khan’s (Vinayakan) army, as it attacks the kingdom, is also CGI…”  Jishnu says. Similarly, most of Nagathan Bridge is also not real. 

Jishnu Dev | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

To give an idea of the extent of visual effects in the film, Jishnu says, “Only small portion of it was made by the production design team while the rest of it is computer-generated.”

Of the 15 VFX companies that worked on Aadu 3, 12 are based in Kerala, the others are in Mumbai and Chennai. “The studios were picked for their specialisations and strengths. Around 800 technicians alone worked on the VFX for this film.”