Bringing together an intersection of industry trailblazers, thought-leaders, academicians, filmmakers and VFX professionals under one banner to discuss ideas, imagination, solutions and the future of filmmaking, VAM (VFX & more) summit blazed a trail of sessions encapsulating the challenges, power points and trends that the year witnessed.
The first day of the summit kicked off with a welcome note by AnimationXpress Founder, Chairman, Editor-in-Chief Anil Wanvari where he set the tone of the event, touching upon the key topics of the agenda.
Proceedings of the day were carried further by a definitive panel by Unreal Engine on “Virtual Production”; a subject which is progressively enveloping the VFX industry with its myriad promises and applications every day.
Moderated by Epic Games India/SEA business director Sameer Pitalwaala, the panel included Dancing Atoms creator, creative producer & director Saraswathi Vani Balgam, Famous Studio managing director Anant Roongta, GreenRain Studios founder Karan Parikh.
Discussing what virtual production means to them, panelists took a shot at defining the emerging technique in their own unique ways. While Vani deftly described it as a ‘mathematically calculated way to make art’, Roongta lauded it as the tool that enables “them to bring the outdoor world into the studio, improve deliverables and aid filmmakers with background assets which are the key ingredients of virtual production.” Parikh shared that virtual production is a production technique that allows “everyone from a director to a writer to a D.O.P to a VFX supervisor to be on the same page.”
With software developments in real-time game engines combined with hardware developments in GPUs and on-set video equipment, filmmakers are now indeed capturing final pixel VFX while still on set, enabling new levels of creative collaboration and efficiency during principal photography.
Extolling the usefulness of in-camera visual effects and game-engine assisted virtual production, Balgam who also recently completed Unreal Fellowship shared, “It means giving creatives more power without having to feel the burden of other things. Production is when you take the camera out there and do what you need to do but what virtual production really did was enabled content creators to make content without worrying about other things. You could go ahead and create so it makes life very easy because of the tools like mocap, readily available assets, animation and rigs with which you could do all your previsualisation.”
Building upon the same notion, Roongta shared that even filmmakers need to embrace this technology. He added, “If you want to experience something amazing with virtual production, you need to step outside your comfort zone.”
Illustrating the myriad application of in-camera visual effects, Epic Games tech evangelist India/SEA Arvind Neelakanta gave a comprehensive presentation on in-camera VFX and real time workflows using Unreal Engine to produce film and television content. He shared how Unreal Engine can solve the various production challenges. Diving deep into the history and future of Unreal Engine, he shared the case studies of popular movies like John Wick 3 where they created a virtual world a virtual set with VR which eased the challenges of mirror reflection on a glass wall faced by the producer. With Unreal, you can create a design of photo-real quality he informed.
He cited the example of a superhit Netflix series Stranger Things where the makers created the texture and every minute details of Demogorgon (a creature in the series) in Unreal Engine.
The next session titled ‘Curtain Raiser: Powering the Future of VFX’ saw an insightful discussion between Technicolor CTO – Production R&D Sebastian Sylwan and Technicolor India Head Biren Ghose about the next generation of VFX content which is being enabled and informed by software and creative collaboration.
Creativity has been greatly enhanced by interactive media and technology taking storytelling into a new immersive paradigm; generating a new visual language. Exploring the evolution of Computer Graphics and the changes and trends taking place in the future, Sylwan shared that content creation in general is the most collaborative art form. He shared that that covid put the industry into high gear and jolted the world into accelerating the adoption of digital tools to leverage that collaboration.
Sylvan shared. “Anything that removes the layer on the creative intent, makes things more intuitive and frees up the path to creation is what would point towards the next generation of technology. The common theme across various technologies is that it helps remove the layers and increase the immediacy between the creative intent and its realisation.”
Ghose pointed out the diversity of visual effects which made people embrace more themes. Touching upon various proprietary software and tools for explosion, water, fur, crowds along with the community of open source ones that has ushered in a kind of democratisation, Ghose explored the parallel dynamic of content creation and where it is headed in the future.
The session was followed by an insightful masterclass on ‘The past, present and future of visualization’ by The Third Floor CEO and cofounder Chris Edwards where he threw light on the history and future of previsualization. Diving into the history of previsualization; where in earlier days one of the key elements of previsualization was storyboarding, he cited some of the classic examples including the daunting shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho from 1960.
He spoke about his days at the Lucas Ranch where he worked on Star Wars movies. He explained how he creates a clear vision for the filmmakers in advance so that they could feel very comfortable before they pass that early vision into final visual effects. Touching upon various aspects like previz, techviz, pitch viz, he shared that all artistry looks like the final photographic image in the end. Demonstrating how previsualisation process eases the workflow, he demonstrated that there are various parts in the previsualization process which includes storyboard and animatics, world-building, virtual tech scout, precis & mocap, virtual camera, techvis and simulcam, postvis and editorial. He also shared that previsualization can help save a ton of money and today Third floor’s previz is used for an initial pitch for a ton of projects.
Being the undisputed master of previz, Edward’s presentation which involved big-ticket examples like Avengers:Infinity War, Game Of Thrones and The Mandalorian became the highlight of the day and laid the ground for the next panel discussion.
The following panel discussion on “The rising importance of Previz” served as the corollary to the presentation that saw an insightful discussion among various industry leaders and proponents of previz speaking about their experiences with this craft and its scope in India.
Moderated by DNEG VFX supervisor Tim McGovern, the panel included Proof Previs/Postvis Supervisor Faraz Hameed, The Third Floor CEO and co-founder Chris Edwards, The Third Floor Managing Director Tim Keene, DNEG VFX supervisor Jaykar Arudra, Bilva Design Consultants founder & creative director Junaid Ullah, Cinegence Media founder Stephen Mascarenhas
Speakers spoke about the significance of previz and how it helped them achieve better results. While Arudra spoke of the recent project that DNEG worked on which involved demands for real-time previz and assets, Ullah detailed his work on marvels like Bahubali and the way he deployed previz to plan the imagery. Hameed and Mascarenhas also highlighted the way previz can pave the way for more visually appealing, feasible and well-planned projects.
After a short break, the event resumed with a VFX breakdown of the Oscar-winning movie 1917 by MPC Film Bangalore compositing supervisor Vijay Selvam. He shed light on the VFX breakdown explaining how they invisibly stitched the shots together for the movie. He shared that the movie itself is inspired bý the director Sam Mendes’ father’s experience in World War 1. He also states that they decided to have the movie without any cuts and distractions to make the appearance as immersive as possible, connecting with the core storytelling and the narrative vision. He also shared, “the movie was shot during the day and the plates were sent to the editorial at night and ‘overnight the editor had to lock the shots and the next day it was delivered to MPC. There have been 50 odd shots ranging from one to five minutes and frames were all in 1000.”
Next session saw VFX professionals and studio owners who service television programmes and create effects for episodics discuss the various challenges and constraints which result in the quality being compromised.
Moderated by Animation Xpress editor-in-chief, chairman and founder Anil Wanvari, the panel consisted One Life Studios business head Summit Jaiswal; Contiloe Pictures & Films CFO and VFX & Animation Business head Nitin Dadoo; Dashami Creations and Dashami Studioz producer Ninad Vaidya; and Flying Toads Entertainment CFO Hitesh Kumar.
All the panelists agreed that the VFX budgets have been somewhat badly hit and have gone down. Vaidya stated that out of an overall budget for a show, five to 10 per cent is allotted for VFX which most of the time isn’t enough.
The session was followed by another power-packed panel discussion on “Demystifying future tech for filmmakers.” Moderated by Praveen Kilaru, panelists included Scan 360 Studios partner Hans Van Der Sluys, Centroid CEO Phil Stilgoe, Technicolor head of technology- APAC Shajy Thomas and Famous Studios FHOA creative director Jayant Hadke
While Hans and Stilgoe spoke about their journey of evangelising motion capture technology in India, Shajy and Hadke expounded on the use of previz tools, virtualization technologies, real time rendering, Unreal Engine assets, the shift in the pipelines in the future.
Following that, there was an insightful chat between DNEG India creative director & general manager Merzin Tavaria and AnimationXpress founder, chairman and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari on “The Rise Of Indian Players.”
Tavaria spoke about his VFX journey from wire-removals to doing everything from roto, prep, lighting, comp, match-move, virtual screens and virtual production etc. He also spoke about Prime Focus and the never-say-die attitude that helped them scale up and make history with DNEG.
Next was a panel on the crucial issue that surrounds the AVGX sector; the Education Gap in the Indian VFX industry. Present on the panel were ABAI AVGC Centre of Excellence Secretary B S Srinivas, Whistling Woods International VP & CTO Chaitanya Chinchalkar, Anibrain founder and CEO Jesh Krishna Murthy, Makuta VFX division head and chief technical director Pete Draper, Aptech chief marketing officer and executive vice president Pravir Arora. The session was moderated by Climb Media founder and director Kireet Khurana.
The panel discussed the change in the education system over the years in the AVGC industry, and how it is different from the international system.
The final segment of the day was a panel on “Women In VFX” was participated by some of the most prominent and leading women of the VFX industry. On the panel were Hula Hoop founder and managing director Priyanka Balasubramanian, VFX Producer Ellen Somers, Technicolor India Head of Studio for Film and Episodic VFX Kranti Sarma, Dancing Atoms creator, creative producer & director Saraswathi Vani Balgam, ABAI – Centre of Excellence CEO Shiji Sunil and it was moderated by Senior VFX Producer Asmita Bharati.
The main vision of the panel was to understand why even today there are not enough women professionals practising the craft of VFX and explore how the experience for these women professionals who have worked behind the visuals has been. This panel threw light on the challenges, scope and affirmative action needed to equalise the opportunities and ways to encourage more women to take up this profession.
The event concluded with Wanvari’s closing remarks where he thanked the speakers, advisory board members and attendees for their participation and the fervour with which they tuned in and made this event successful.
