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The Vayu digital studio will bring together western and local talent in the visual effects segment
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MASTERS OF THE GENRE (From left) Jon Labrie, Madhu Sudhanan, Barrie Osborne and Michael Peyser
The mood in the Indian entertainment industry is upbeat. A lot of post-production, animation and visual FX work are being outsourced to India from the U.S. and Europe. And to give the visual effects segment a truly global essence, Barrie M. Osborne, producer of films such as Lord of the Rings and Matrix, Hollywood Producer Michael Peyser and Indian VFX producer N. Madhusudhanan have come together to set up Vayu digital studio in India.
The studio is expected to begin its operations in conjunction with a local partner in Chennai in May this year. The head office will be in Los Angeles. To start with, the studio will house 50 to 75 artists, a combination of western and local talent and will gradually raise its capacity to 250-300. The studio will provide services in VFX and animation to some of the best filmmakers worldwide.
Jon Labrie, former Chief Technology Officer of Vector Digital Studio, who has projects like Lord of the Rings to his credit will provide the technical conduit for the studio here. "We will also bring in animation directors, visual effects producers/supervisor, compositing directors and lead managers from Hollywood, who have basically worked in academy award winning films to nurture raw talent here. The presence of producers like Barrie with loads of experience in working on visual effects-driven movies is a great advantage," says Madhusudhanan. On the choice of Vayu (Sanskrit for wind), he says: "Barrie is a great fan of Sanskrit and we wanted to finalise a name that has something to do with air. Vayu is a blend of the East and the West and gives a feel of the digital world, too."
Madhusudhanan, the first chairman of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry - Visual Effects Community (FICCI- VEC) says that the talent pool is very limited. "It's time that visual effects and animation are included in the main degree stream like visual communication and fine arts. Rather than a diploma course, we should cultivate a student culture, because the potential for visual effects, animation and gaming and post-production is immense," he adds. What is required is a unique blend of IT skills and creativity. He explains why. "We developed a programme called `massive' using Artificial Intelligence to create a war sequence in Lord of the Rings. The kind of coding used played an important role and it is different from the coding done in banking or credit card sector."
Talking about the potential of visual effects-driven movies, Madhusudhanan says that in the international market with concepts like home theatre, many prefer to enjoy movies at home. "But, visual effects-driven movies such as Matrix, Titanic and even the recent Chronicles of Narnia and Godzilla are international box office hits because people prefer to enjoy such movies in theatres. We can recreate the magic here once we start using the technology to suit Indian story conditions," he explains.
A stringent recruitment process will be followed to select the best talent from the Indian pool for Vayu. "We have already finalised a few projects and it's going to be a great learning experience. We are not competing with Hollywood's visual effects majors but are looking to play a complementary role instead. And the essential elements we need are credibility, expertise and quality manpower. It's going to be a cost-advantage situation for them as well," he adds.
K.JESHI
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