The results are out for the ‘Nuker of the Year’ contest which was running for over three weeks from 8 October to 5 November. The jury consisted of renowned names from the VFX industry namely: Jordan Thistlewood – Head of Creative Specialist at The Foundry; Amit Sharma – Head of Compositing at MPC Bangalore and Kyle McCulloch – Visual Effects Supervisor at Framestore.
AnimationXpress.com had a chat with the winners of all the three categories, namely ‘Nuker Team of the Year’, ‘Nuker Student of the Year’ and finally ‘Nuker of the Year’ over e-mail and below is what they had to say about the competition this year.
The ‘Nuker Team of the Year’ was bagged by Vishal Samtani, Rajesh Kumar and Ratan Gaikwad from Visual Element Design Academy (VEDA), commenting on the win they said: “It was a remarkable experience for our team to have participated in a national level completion where professionals from all walks were competing. We use Nuke in our animation college i.e. Visual Element Design Academy or VEDA as it is popularly known. We have in the past participated in various local events but the “Nuker of the year” was way ahead of all those.”
The team was speechless on hearing they had won in the team category. “We worked hard and planned well for the competition and were sure of getting a good score but the thought of becoming the “Winner” was never there at the back of our minds. When our name was announced we were stunned that we really cracked one of India’s biggest VFX competitions and came through being the national champions,” the team exulted.
‘Nuker of the Year’ is a big platform for amateurs and professionals alike from the VFX Industry to showcase their skills to the world out there. And a competition like this certainly acts as a catalyst for students and professional to make a name for them. “This also comes as an opportunity to exchange knowledge for participants like us. The stakes were high and competition was very tough and we knew that maintaining these standards to get the crown the following year will be tough. But we are up for the task,” the team ended.
The ‘Nuker Team of the Year’ also win 3 x 1 year Production Collectives + an expert afternoon, dinner and drinks coinciding with the November events apart from the medals, glory and recognition. That will certainly add a lot of value to their professional careers and help them build their industry relevant portfolio.
Moving on to the ‘Nuker Student of the Year’ category, the winner was ZICA’s Pankaj Bandolia, who is currently pursuing his final year course at the institute’s Mumbai branch. “It was the first time I did something like this. To be able to unleash my creativity, without any boundaries, using all the knowledge of the tool that I learnt and imbibed from my faculty, Chetal A Gazdar at ZICA gave me a sense of creative freedom; which was very enriching wherein, I could explore my potential. This unique experience helped me boost my innate confidence and convinced me that I can do so much more, he revealed.
In terms of Pankaj’s learning take aways from the competition he added: “Fly Through helped me understand the working of computer generated images and gave me a chance to make my aesthetic sensibilities strong and explore new techniques of execution, along with handling a project with ease.”
And what more could a student aspiring to work with one of the most prestigious VFX houses in the world want, as Pankaj has also earned a golden ticket to intern with Moving Picture Company (MPC) in the coming year.
So what’s next of this bright young boy’s mind: “To embark on the magical journey of a flourishing career by getting a very good job as its first step! Next year I will definitely participate for ‘Nuker of the Year’ but in the professional category,” he exclaims. Now that’s really dreaming big!
And finally, in the ‘Big Boys’ league – the ‘Nuker of the Year’ bounty was snapped up by Vivek Ananthan from ICAT (Chennai), commenting on his win he said: “It took me completely by surprise, I was speechless when I read the email telling me that I had won ‘Nuker of the Year’.”
Sharing his thoughts on his plans with the prize he added: “I will train and develop my skills further, improving my knowledge in compositing and basic 3D that I can utilise in my every day work. Given the ability to train my skills out of the studio I want to move into conforming and leading bigger projects with the great toolset in Nukestudio.”
It was certainly a great initiative by The Foundry to not only scout for some great local talent in India, but to also interact and engage with the local VFX student and professional community and understanding their shortcomings and helping them out in the way.
You can check out their works on the below mentioned links:-
Nuker of the year (Student) – Fly Through
Nuker of the year (Professional) – Ferrero Rocher – Magic Tree (Password: ferchoc)
