Gone are the days when just whitened hair and dark under-eye makeup signified ageing on screen. Today, Bollywood filmmakers don't think twice about hiring the best in the business in Hollywood.

And why not, as Gautham Menon had pointed out, "We have the budgets now, to be able to afford them. The monetary divide is not that huge a gap that we can't leap over. Especially South films, and Bollywood to a large extent, are all about FX and the attention to detail - whatever the cost may be."

Brett Ratner for 'Kites'
The man got more publicity in India when he stepped down as the Oscars producer for a gay slur than he got when he edited the English version of "Kites". But still, it is perhaps because of him that the film did well West-wards than it did in India. Hollywood director Brett Ratner, known for blockbusters like "Rush Hour" and "X-Men: The Last Stand" was heard talking of Hrithik Roshan, and his dancing skills. Ratner chopped the songs from the film, reduced its length, and in Roshan's words, "intensified the movie for the US market". He later said, in an interview, "This is an example of the globalization of film, where it's not just Hollywood movies that are working everywhere in the world. It's now Bollywood movies that are kind of working in the US."
Christien Tinsley and Dominique Till

For 'Paa'
They were the ones who took up the task to make Amitabh Bachchan look like the 13-year-old Auro in "Paa". Big B was to recall later how strenuous the whole makeup was, in one of his blogs - "It took four hours to put the whole set on, and two hours to remove it." Bachchan's makeup was said to have cost 10% of the budget of the film, but then, for Christien Tinsley, the prosthetics designer who's done the makeup for "Catwoman" and "The Passion Of The Christ," and Dominique Till, who did the special effects for "The Lord Of The Rings", it was just another day at work.

Greg Cannom for '7 Khoon Maaf'
Priyanka Chopra also had to undergo some four hours of prosthetic makeup for her seven different avatars, through which she ages 45 years in "7 Khoon Maaf". Hollywood makeup artiste Greg Cannom, best known for his Oscar-winning work on "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" and "Mrs Doubtfire", was hired for the job.

'Ra.one's' Hollywood collaborations
Italian-born cinematographer, Nicola Pecorini made Shah Rukh dance to his tunes in "Ra.One" In fact, if there ever was a movie that can show the moolah power of Bollywood, it has to be "Ra.One". Never mind that the film didn't do well at the box office, but riding on SRK's popularity, the movie managed some Hollywood-Bollywood collaborations, and gave a whole new twist to the phrase 'big budget'.

Stan Winston Studio for 'Robot'
Rajinikanth reportedly charged a whopping `45 crore for the sci-fi thriller "Robot". But to make the ageing star look young and robot-like, the film's director Shankar went Westwards. They apparently scanned his body and created a prototype, out of which they created a lookalike robot, and budgets be damned!

Shankar also collaborated with Hollywood's Stan Winston Studio for visual effects and makeup. Almost 40% of the `150-crore budget was spent on special effects and animatronics. The film also had a foreign crew that included E Vogt, who had designed clothes for "Men In Black III", and Yuen Woo Ping, one of the most successful Chinese martial art choreographers. "The budget is justified considering that it is a complete entertainer with the most advanced special effects seen so far on the Indian screen," said Shankar.

Team 'Ra.One'
The 'Ra.One' crew had some 5,000 members from India, Italy and the US
Jeff Kleiser of the1994 Hollywood film - 'Stargate' was hired as the supervisor of visual effects
Nicola Pecorini of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' fame is the director of photography
The film is edited by Academy-award winner Martin Walsh
Akon sang two songs - 'Chammak Challo' and 'Criminal' - for the film
Chinese-American actor Tom Wu was signed on to be a part of the film
Shah Rukh's prosthetic makeup, and the body suit made of plasticine and a latex-like material, which was custom made for him, came from a studio in LA for a whopping $220,000. SRK would often joke, "The best part of the suit is that it came with two pretty ladies who helped me put it on and remove it"
Hollywood writer David Benullo did the screenplay for the film. Benullo has written the screenplay for films
like 'Around The World In 80 Days'