After the success of our first project in the Malayalam movie industry, with the Augmented Reality promo app called the 919 Challenge for the movie Nine, starring Prithviraj, we were welcomed to do something of the same sort for Prithviraj's directorial debut, Lucifer.
This was a big deal for us because instead of the earlier treasure hunt style AR application, this time we had the opportunity to bring in legendary actor Mohanlal, for our project. Obviously, we were excited beyond words. We were getting ready for one of the biggest exposure projects we have ever done in Infusory.
The outlining plan was to make an "Act With Mohanlal" type of situation where an AR hologram of Lalettan could be placed anywhere in your home while you show your acting prowess near him. This also involved sharing the resulting video in social media platforms with a hashtag campaign that would let the star himself choose the best ones. The winners would then get a chance to meet Mohanlal and spend time with him!
We knew from this moment that this was much bigger than we expected. We'll get to do a shoot with the megastar and also launch a campaign with him. Moreover, the movie Lucifer was highly hyped as a mass entertainment movie since Prithviraj was going to direct a Mohanlal movie.
We prepped ourselves for ways to make the execution perfect. We knew we need to get a smooth, all-device compatible AR hologram working in a matter of weeks.
Like our COO Shyam Pradeep's recent LinkedIn post, the first thing I did was to decide whether to use a 2D or 3D version of Mohanlal for the hologram. Both had their benefits and shortcomings. If it was 3D we will have to 3D map Mohanlal, which meant more cost and time. But 2D was less realistic. We finally decided to use 2D, given how short the timeline was. We decided to use a green screen video and rotoscoping to get a hologram-like video that can be placed in AR.
We first used an image target identification setup to place the "twin-hologram" of our volunteering test subject, Shyam. This was problematic even though we did it as a test. The video wouldn't align to the floor and was dependent on the height of holding the image target.
Thus we decided on a ground plane orientation mechanism. This was where the device compatibility issues begin.
By now, we had to shoot the green screen videos with Mohanlal himself as the deadline was getting shorter. Thomson, our CEO, had to go to Chennai at the studio where the shoot was happening. Everything was set up and then walks in this man of enormous aura and grandiose. He aced through his lines like a pro. (which he is, obviously) We obtained the required videos with his iconic voice and acting mannerisms, where he was pretending to watch the app user act out his favorite movie scenes.
Meanwhile at the Infusory office, I was on a struggle of another level. The video capturing part after placing the AR was laggy as hell. And the challenge is useless without the recording part! After days (and nights) of battling device compatibility issues and recording stutters, looking into external Unity plugins to help with the stutters and crashing of the app, the eureka moment was gifted to me by sheer luck. Somehow we were able to make the AR and recording mechanism work in most device we tested. It would take me more than a paragraph to describe the struggles (almost giving up) to get it running. For the first time in my project endeavors, it dawned on to me that, getting an app implemented is also about getting it working on more than my phone/laptop.
We crossed the deadline by a few days nevertheless, but it was ready. The Lucifer Challenge in association with Radio Mango and Lucifer Movie was as good as ready! That morning we were treated with a Facebook post by Mohanlal itself, mentioning the challenge. And boy, were we excited.
The submissions slowly started rolling in, in between reviews of compatibility issues. But we were expecting that. Augmented Reality in phones are nowhere near the compatibility that we'd rather like. It was too early and most phones didn't have the support for it. That's why we had to settle for a fast running implementation than a well running one.
I, on the other hand, learned a lot from this one project. Firstly, it is true that the phenomenal actor and megastar who Mohanlal has become, has a special kind of aura wherever he goes and whatever he does. Some sort of unexplainable grandeur, like I mentioned earlier. Second, an app isn't complete unless it works perfectly in most devices and use cases. Third, we as user experience designers should use the application from the point of view of a layman who is using it for the first time, not like us developers who know where to point and what to click.
To close it off, coming from humble beginnings, we never imagined a day so soon, to get to work with the Malayalam Movie industry we Mallus are very proud of. We didn't expect to be in the same room as our acting idol, shoot videos with him, launch a campaign with him. It just seems, hard work always pays off with some amount of magical luck sprinkled in between.
Originally published at https://deviantmatter.com on May 8, 2020
