The world‘s biggest expo and conference dedicated to entertainment technology, the NAB Show is currently underway at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, USA. More than 1,10,000+ delegates from 163 countries across the world are expected to converge, network, share knowledge, exhibit their latest products and services and do business over the next four days.
With a tagline of Where Content comes to life, the show has more than 550 knowledge sessions in its span of 7 days and 1600 + exhibitors. This year a new showcase called Content Theater has been set up showcasing work and panel sessions on topics including 3D Stereoscopy, Animation, Visual Effects amongst others.
A special session showcasing the best Indian CG & VFX work has been organised by NAB and this Indian session is being produced in association with AnimationXpress.com. Titled Indian Animation & VFX eyeing the global stage, the session takes place on Tuesday, 15 April 2008 between 9.15 and 10.30 am at the Content Theater in the Central Hall.
The session will be moderated by AnimationXpress.com Co Founder, CEO & Managing Editor Anand Gurnani, panelists include Contiloe Pictures Abhimanyu Singh who will showcase Mahayoddha Rama from a film producer and content house perspective, RedChillies.VFX Keitan Yadav and Haresh Hingorani who will be showing their VFX prowess on OSO, Chak De and the Krazzy 4 song. Also present in the panel will be Prime Focus‘ Amit Gupta showcasing Saawariya, certain scenes from Love Story 2050 and their Frantic Films catalogue, Kartik Gangadharan from Ocher Studios will highlight on the studio‘s much talked about mega project Sultaan – The Warrior.
India has been generating a lot of interest and a veritable list of who‘s who from Hollywood as well as International media will be present at the session.
Speaking exclusively to AnimationXpress.com, on this initiative of organizing an India centric session at NAB Show, NAB Senior Vice President, Business Development, David Dziedzic, shared, “The last two years have seen rowing collaboration between the Indian and United States filmmaking industries. It has also seen a significant rise in the animation and visual effects expertise in the studios throughout India, as well as an increased recognition by Hollywood of the breadth of the country’s talents and the depth of the stories it has to tell. All of these factors have converged to put India on the top of mind for NAB, and led to the invitation to the Indian film and TV industries not only to partake in the Content Theater, but in other 2008 NAB Show events, as well. The panel we have slated for Tuesday morning in the Theater promises to be an interesting and popular session. We are all looking forward to it.”
Contiloe‘s Abhimanyu Singh was all praise for NAB. “This is such a great show!” he exclaimed. “As a producer who believes in creating cutting edge content, I am very excited with the kind of technology equipment they have here on display. I think many more Indian producers should participate at a show like NAB where they will find technology that will help improve the quality of content and make it even more cost effective to produce”
Talking about the Indian CG & VFX presentation lined up for Tuesday, Abhimanyu shared, “With such huge traction of content technology, and therefore creators, it is but logical to have a content showcase here at NAB. We look forward to sharing about the animation quality we plan to achieve with Mahayoddha Rama”
Ocher Studio‘s Kartik Gangadharan, shared, “All these years NAB has been the premium place for hardware and software technology, it has now become a huge one stop destination and creates a circle.We have been benifitted in the past coming to NAB,it has been a great experience. We are looking forward to the Indian CG & VFX session where we will talk about how India has emerged and the quality benchmarks we are setting. India has the financial muscle to buy technology, its just that the focus has to be more on the global content.”
Keitan who will be concentrating on Red Chillies.VFX’s projects like Om Shanti Om, Chakde and Krazzy 4 during his presentation said, “On a platform like NAB Show, we would be looking at creating awareness for the Indian VFX industry. Let’s see what we can do collectively to bring the Indian VFX & Animation at par with the world. I am looking forward to meeting people from the industry, checking out new technology and implementing new methods and techniques.”
Prime Focus Amit Gupta added, “NAB‘s conference at Vegas is probably one of the biggest in the media and entertainments space. It gives a great platform for the Indian companies to create awareness about their expertise what is happening in our country. We look forward to presenting the animation and visual effects side of India movies and showcasing how indian companies are producing world quality visual effects. The highlight of my presentation is the progression in quality of effects in the last three years. This took much longer for covering the same ground everywhere in thw world. We are sure that the session is interesting and informative.”
Giving his comments, moderator and coproducer for the Indian CG & VFX session at NAB, AnimationXpress.com‘s Anand Gurnani said, “Showcasing Indian Animation & VFX to India and across the world is my full time occupation and passion. As a moderator and co producer of this Indian session along with NAB, I look forward to giving the audience a solid takeaway in terms of knowledge about Indian Animation and VFX, as well as expose and showcase good Indian work to the audience which will consist of International and Hollywood CG, VFX & Entertainment businesses as well as Media”
“This opportunity for animationxpress to put together a showcase of Indian CG & VFX has come about thanks to my colleague Anoop Wanvari from Indiantelevision.com and NAB consultant Keshav Prakash. It has also been great to work with the dyanmic team at NAB including Ashley and Kyle as well as Rochelle Winters from Smoke and Mirrors” he concluded.
