The 1,300-strong Rhythm and Hues (R&H), the visual effects company, is no stranger to awards, but when it bagged the second Oscar for Life of Pi for the Best VFX in Motion Pictures, it was with a sense of déjà vu that they received the news. In 2008, the VFX wizards in the company got an Oscar for Golden Compass.
About 650 associates logged in from R&H facilities at Hyderabad, Mumbai, Malaysia, Taiwan, Los Angeles and Vancouver worked for nearly 30 months on the project. And at the end of it every one of them is basking in the glory, in the knowledge that it was a ‘job well done’. For the record, about 75 per cent of the award-winning blockbuster film comprised VFX.
Saraswathi Balgam, also called Vani, who is Managing Director of R&H (India) and oversees operations at the Hyderabad, Mumbai, Malaysia and Taiwan facilities describes it as a humbling experience, working with the likes of Ang Lee, the man who put together Life of Pi.
Two nominations
Of the five nominations in the VFX category, R&H was nominated for two films -- Life of Pi and Snow White And The Huntsman. “If there were two awards, we would have bagged both,” she said.
“It was hard work and we were involved in Life of Pi from the research and development stage, studying the characters, going through the script and a lot of planning even before we started on the drawing board,” Ms. Vani told The Hindu. “Rhythm and Hues has once again proven that given the right environment, we can create Academy Award-winning VFX,” she added. R&H is currently working on a half-a-dozen Hollywood films including RIPD, Percy Jackson 2 and The Seventh Sun.
Keywords: Rhythm and Hues (R&H), visual effects, Life of Pi, VFX, Oscar, Ang Lee
It's a good thing these extremely talented people from Chennai have an outlet for
their incredible and outstanding skills in foreign directed films that end up winning
Oscars. The imagery in "Life of Pi" is magical and I would never have guessed the
tiger was not real. It is only after seeing this mix and match of real and imagined put
together so seamlessly that one realizes the human race has progressed to new
dimensions and is moving to more exciting horizons, otherwise, if one has to
consider the rest such as pollution of water bodies, never ending garbage
accumulation, stress, wars and nuclear weapons, we have surely gone backwards
and regressed pitifully. Thanks to this team for making life exciting and worth living
again!
Shouldn't it be mentioned that Rhythm and Hues has filed for bankruptcy in the country where it is incorporated. It is hard to buy the charm of working in this place with that additional piece of information. Congratulations to the team which got to work on the movie. Great Job Done!
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