“We have spent some good time in building our credentials abroad and are today already on the approved list of all the major producers and studios in Hollywood”
What’s the latest projects at VCL?
There is a lot of high end VFX, animation and simulation work happening at VCL.
On the VFX front, in India last year we worked on Bose, Bunty aur Babli, Neal N Nikki, Salaam Namaste, this year too there’s quite some interesting stuff coming up. Our work for Rang De Basanti, the latest rage in Bollywood has been highly appreciated and it’s something we are proud of. In the pipeline there’s theatre actor Feroz Khan’s My Father Gandhi, Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, Dhoom 2 and two other big films which I cannot disclose as of now.
In Hollywood last year we delivered XXX2 and Into the Blue. We are in the finishing stages of One Night with the King which is a Biblical tale starring Peter O Toole and Omar Sharif. The story involves a palace which is surrounded by hills. The producers after research zeroed upon the Umedbhavan Palace in Rajasthan and our team has really enjoyed the challenge of doing the whole thing in CG with some great research work and referencing. There’s also a lot of walk cycles and illumination FX in the movie.
There’s also a top of the league Hollywood film we are working on which should be released by end of ’07 and another Horror movie with an A grade Hollywood actor.
What about the animation front?
There’s an international CG film that VCL is working on. The film has edgy humor and is a 2D property being converted to 3D. We are also working on an animated series for a Japanese studio.
Another interesting field in which we are applying our skills is Simulation and high end corporate films.
What are the other interesting developments at VCL?
At VCL we are developing teams that specialize in things like pre visualization, in programming, in research and development etc. We now have a pro active approach rather than a reactive one. Our teams analyze and anticipate bottlenecks that might spring up and work in advance on the solutions.
There was a lot of research that went into creating the CG Air Force plane for Rang De Basanti and we are very satisfied with the results. Likewise we have done a lot of pre visualization and animatics for Dhoom2 which means better planning, better and more perfect execution. At the end of the day such exercises also mean a lot of savings on production budgets.
We are also seriously looking at addressing the HR crunch that’s been plaguing the industry.
“There was a lot of research that went into creating the CG Air Force plane for Rang De Basanti and we are very satisfied with the results”
Please elaborate
In the animation industry, everybody has one basic problem, that of HR crunch. Otherwise the sky is the limit in terms of the amount of work that could flow into India.
When studio A poaches from studio B even as an ongoing project at Studio A suffers, you know its wrong for the whole industry. That’s a short term approach for fixing one’s problems.
At VCL we have long term plans on HR and we are against the artificial inflation that happens in the industry due to poaching and job jumping where people with just 2-4 years experience demand and get extremely high salaries without actually focusing on honing their skills and bringing value to the table.
If you had a 1000 animators coming out every year the industry will no longer have the manpower problem. We are talking to international academic institutions to share their expertise and to design courses where students will be taught how to think animation and then develop domain knowledge within the graphics realm. That domain knowledge can be then applied for games, VFX, animation, simulation VR etc.
We are in talks with a number of international schools, informing them about HR needs in Indian animation and extending maximum help to them. The focus will be on improving domain knowledge and skills.
It will definitely happen. We would prefer that everybody from the industry is involved.
“At VCL we have long term plans on HR and we are against the artificial inflation that happens in the industry due to poaching and job jumping”
How’s the overall scenario like and what’s your approach?
We recognize that we are here and with the kind of quality we provide the business will come. Our belief is that create the right environment and people will love to come and work.
What is satisfying is that we have spent a lot of time building our credentials abroad and are today already on the approved list of all the major producers and studios in Hollywood.
The next step is to go up the value chain, we have a pre viz team which was earlier into client work, now the team is acquiring pre production skills. We are doing the right things. We are building on our skills. Our in house R&D component is scaling up.
There is so much of an opportunity out there, we have set our goals and are treading carefully. If you observe we started our International VFX with Hollywood projects, then gradually expanded to Europe and then to Asia. We have a very structured approach to the whole business.
Parting Shot?
These are exciting times for us with so many key relationships and projects on the anvil. It is good to see the tremendous enthusiasm amongst the artists out there wanting to work for us and who want to be a part of this excitement. This is a good problem to have!