Maintaining Skin Tone Of Shivaay Characters A Challenge

Media services company Prime Focus delivered Digital Intermediate (DI) services for the film, which has been directed and co-produced by Ajay.

“The film itself is visually stunning and Aseem Bajaj’s brilliant camera work has helped create an immersive, surreal experience that instantly draws viewers into the story. The challenge was to maintain a radiant skin tone for the characters as they are falling off a CG mountain,” Ashirwad Hadkar, colourist at Prime Focus, said in a statement.

Hadkar also shared that “different areas of the skin were required” to be “enhanced and then matched with the cold and saturated environment”.

Talking about how colour grading helped correct some of the shots in the film, director of photography Aseem Bajaj shared that there was a sequence in the film which was shot in Bulgaria, which “didn’t turn out as per our expectations”.

“There was a brothel sequence we shot in Bulgaria which didn’t turn out as per our expectations. The intensity of the neon lights did not match the foreground lighting, making the frame look bleak and flat. During the grade, Ajay and I briefed Ashirwad about how we wanted everything in the environment to pop up with the neon look,” Hadkar said.

“To achieve this look, we initially isolated the highlights and by careful modulation of exposure, contrast and shadows we eventually arrived at the desired effect,” he added.

Shivaay, which released on October 28, is a story of a mountaineer who has to overcome severe challenges to protect his daughter.