In today’s fast-paced, competitive studio environment burdened with tight deadlines, one of the key challenges for producers is to build reliability by managing the production pipeline efficiently and delivering on the dot. Inability to instantly hire talent and scale-up infrastructure for large projects is proving fatal for many small and medium studios which are cost-conscious. Investing in full-time resources and high performance machines on a large scale is not viable for smaller studios prone to low productivity during long gaps between projects when expensive teams and infrastructure stay idle. Enter GAFXonline.com: an emerging 24/7 online marketplace positioned as the global confluence of producers and freelance artists in gaming, animation and VFX.
GAFX is passionate about addressing these challenges with affordable solutions: instant online access to quality talent on a project-basis as well as access to a high-performance production virtual pipeline on a pay-per-use-basis. GAFX’s proprietary platform leverages technology to allow participants connect and collaborate in a mutually-gainful manner, while enabling them to cut costs, expedite production and improve sustainability.
How it works: Producers registered with GAFX can post their gaming, animation and VFX projects online and hire from the curated registered talent pool of freelance artists. The talent pool comprises of a wide choice of local and international artists with multiple specialisations and different skill/experience levels across gaming, animation and VFX. Similarly, freelance artists registered with GAFX can search and bid for a range of small, medium and large projects posted by registered producers. The projects are updated frequently, giving freelance artists a dependable and sustainable source of income. A secure online payment mechanism ensures easy and safe payment.
Value-for-money engagement model: GAFX helps studios/producers fast-track projects with considerable cost advantages, allowing for instant online hiring and precise artist-searches based on skill, experience, track record, location and a host of parameters to perfectly match talent with project requirements. With direct access to a vast pool of specialised, flexible and more affordable talent, registered producers can bypass the traditional staffing model which is expensive while also ensuring faster time-to-market.
Ever since inception, GAFX has been going great guns. GAFX commenced basic operations in September this year and launched its global online marketplace to a tumultuous response on 10 November 2017. In just two months, it attracted 1200+ freelancer registrations and the numbers continue to soar with fresh registrations every day. With registrations from experienced Indian and international artists across gaming, animation, VFX and graphic design, the quality and breadth of GAFX freelancers underscores the value for producers. Buoyed by the rousing initial response and driven by an aggressive marketing campaign, GAFX seeks to ratchet up the numbers and touch 10,000 registrations by the end of 2018.
The portal is also triggering a wave of interest from reputed gaming, animation and VFX studios as a variety of projects are flowing in at an encouraging pace. Particularly, international producers are eager to take advantage of the fact that a majority of artists registered with GAFX are from India where hiring costs are significantly lower than elsewhere in the world and the artist skill levels are on a par with the best in the world.
The fantastic response to GAFX’s presence at the recent MIPCOM 2017 at Cannes, France indicates the growing popularity of this freelance powerhouse. Many international producers at MIPCOM expressed interest in posting their projects on the GAFX portal to leverage the fast growing repository of talented artists. GAFX has set the ball rolling and in the months to come, studio owners / producers across the media and entertainment industry will reap the benefits of a highly resourceful project-enabler.
The freelance economy is booming across the world, driven by several talent-pairing platforms in sectors such as IT, consulting and more. Nevertheless, in the gaming, animation and VFX space, the lack of a dedicated, dependable and affordable talent-pairing resource for both the stakeholders remains a key challenge. While there are a few players focusing only on a single discipline and others catering to a bewildering array of unrelated industries, there is no single player devotedly catering to gaming, animation and VFX: all interlinked creative arts that collectively drive the media and entertainment industry globally. GAFX is bridging this gap with its proprietary services.
The magic wand: Soon to be introduced is GAFX’s scalable, secure, on-demand, and pay-by-use storage solution, designed to help studios increase productivity. It is sheer magic! Producers can go online with just a basic computer and access the customised storage space and organise and share data with intuitive management. GAFX enables cost-effective and apt cloud-based workstation class computing. With options customised to workflow, studios can access, edit and share new data directly from their GAFX storage.
What’s more, its cloud rendering with the perfect choice of hardware+software bundles helps studios maximise ROI. Building on these, GAFX envisions the virtual studio production pipeline wherein, producers can collaborate remotely with their teams scattered across the world and execute projects faster with measurable time and cost advantages. As this entire infrastructure is hosted on the cloud, there is no need to invest in high-performance machines, pipeline software, digital storage and software licences. Producers and artists can leverage the thoughtfully designed GAFX platform to focus on their arts and propel growth. These services will be rolled out in a phased manner and will be available for both studios and artists.
GAFX has many more initiatives in its pipeline, especially on the technology front, as that’s the biggest factor influencing penetration of the freelance work model across the world. GAFX is continuously working on improving the online platform to simplify engagement and improve results for both freelancers and producers.
GAFX endeavours to build a global presence and emerge as the single-largest, online collaborative workspace in the world dedicated to promoting the interests of producers and freelance artists in gaming, animation and VFX. The enterprise is charting a bold growth strategy and innovating the game to deliver enhanced value. On the anvil is a franchise-driven strategy to augment business through a pan-India digital cafe chain offering virtual production infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis to freelance artists who are constrained to invest on high-end systems and tools, but are competent and willing to work on GAFX freelance projects. The initiative will help build momentum for project off-take, enable easy and cost-effective project execution for freelancers constrained with resources and boost the bottom line of GAFX with direct and indirect revenues.
GAFX is an initiative of Udai Krishna and Neelima, an entrepreneurial duo with actionable exposure in VFX and IT. As a digital media and entertainment industry veteran with deep insights into the VFX value chain, Krishna has helmed vital projects for leading production houses specialising in films, TVCs, documentaries and theatrical trailers. With extensive certifications in 3D animation, VFX, cinematography, multimedia and 3D MAX, he combines academic rigour and professional depth to drive GAFX’s mission.
Neelima on the other hand is a seasoned technology veteran, having served across the hierarchy at global IT companies. Her wealth of cross-domain IT experience across industries and her engineering background are helping GAFX innovate, create and navigate the technology infrastructure vital to enabling a superior user experience and adding value to GAFX’s business drive.
The promoters are focused on promoting sustainable growth and wealth for stakeholders with the drive and dream to script the next success story in the media and entertainment industry.
