Day five of CII’s SummitFX witnessed bunch of stalwarts of the AVGC spectrum shed light on various aspects from Building Robust & Scalable Academic Pipelines in VFX, Immersive Technology, Story with Disney International, Wild Canary & Mikros –The Chicken Squad, Use of VFX and Animation in Modern Apps, How to Establish a Creation & Distribution Ecosystem for Immersive Content, BTS of Making of Love & Monsters and so on.
The day began with a benchmark-setting conversation on ‘building robust & scalable academic pipelines in all areas of the visual effects ecosystem’. This discussion revolved around ‘robust’ and ‘scalable’ where industry shared what they would like from educational institutions on how they see themselves enabling the transition of students from intention to ability.
Moderated by Whistling Woods International Vice President & Business Head Chaitanya Chinchlikar,the discussants included DNEG President, Global Production and Operations Merzin Tavaria, Aptech President & Executive Director Anuj Kacker and MRX Bengaluru creative operations head Kiran Kumar.
While Chinchlikar outlined the prerequisites that India needs to push the AVGC industry, Tavaria spoke about the brain drain and the current progress where Indian artists are finally given their due respect and consideration. Kumar touched upon the advantages of working for a global brand in India while Kacker spoke about associating with studios in order to understand their needs and forming the curriculum accordingly.
The next session of CII SummitFX was Story with Disney International, Wild Canary & Micros – Chicken Squad moderated by Wild Canary executive producer and show-runner Tom Rogers with panelists included Emmy Award winner supervising director Elliot M. Bour , director and storyboard Artist Greg Rankin , Veteran Disney TV animation executive Matthew Siegel , Humanitas Prize and Emmy Award-winning writer co-producer and story editor Rachel Ruderman , Mikros Animation art director – feature animation Manoj Menon , Technicolor/ Mikros India senior supervisor Dheeraj Joseph and Technicolor / Mikros India HOD – lighting and compositing Mayur Pati.
The panelists showcased the making videos of Chicken Squad and shared their experience and challenges they faced while creating animation for the series.
Seigel started the session with revealing how they come up with the idea of creating series based on a book written by Doreen Cronin and how the story further developed and created into a complete series.
Rogers shared the secret sauce for creating a successful TV series he said, “To make great TV series you must have a compelling story, appealing characters, an interesting world and the story should deliver a great message. These are some essential ingredients that make Disney stories effective and interesting.”
Sharing about the story development Ruderman said, “Chicken Squad is a story about helping your neighbour. In every episode we wanted to teach kids to help-out everyone around them and we also have to make sure that we mix tons of silliness and fun with some little life lesson for kids take away from the episode.”
Bour and Rankin shared how camera shots and angles plays major role in delivering effective story and to make the audience to feel the emotional connect. They also shared making of Chicken Squad videos showcasing various camera angles creating depths in the scenes.
Menon and Joseph shared their experience in creating such great series chicken Squad which delivered a great essence of fun, emotion and life lessons to the younger audience.
Pati shared how lighting and composition plays an important role in making the series to look good and pleasant for the audience. It determines the depth of the story to be told.
Then it was time for the session Use of VFX and Animation in Modern Apps where experts shed light on how VFX is fueling brand extensions and revenue extensions
The panelist were Creative Galileo and Little Paddington founder Prerna A Jhunjhunwala, The Mill Bangalore head of studio TC Indraneel Guha, Famulus Media & Entertainment co-founder and managing director Suchit Mukherjee, Reincarnation India founder and owner Yogesh Anand and the session was moderated by Punnaryug Artvision Pvt Ltd and Screenyug Creations Pvt Ltd founder and CEO Ashish Kulkarni.
The stalwarts shed light on how individuals should scout about new technology while staying at home which will further help in scaling up or provide the expertise when needed. Since technology is constantly shifting it is crucial for all to hone the skill set for betterment of the ecosystem.
The VFX is growing exponentially and not just limited to M&E Sector. Even in the edtech sector the use of VFX and animation helped children learn fast with clear perspectives . Due to real visual representation children could retain the knowledge more and because of which parents are also satisfied with the use of technology in education.
There is an available talent pool for creating models and animating them.However the quality of work differs from project to project therefore creating models for projects or Cowin is very easy compared to doing for architecture or automobile industry.
The experts also discussed the relationship with brands that are transforming constantly depending on the requirement. Today VFX is utilized in a broad way including automobile and engineering companies because it allows users the option to feel the products in a realistic and immersive way that is where technologies like AR or Vr are in demand .
The last session’s topic was Fireside Chat on Making of Love & Monsters.
It was hosted by Vice-Chairman, CII National Committee on M&E and Chair, CII Sub-Committee on AVGC & Immersive Media and country head, Technicolor India Biren Ghose. The special guest speaker was Mr X Adelaide animation director and Oscar Award Nominee for VFX – Love and Monsters Matt Everitt.
In the session the two go behind the scenes of the Academy-nominated feature Love & Monsters as Everitt explains how an amazing team in Adelaide, Bangalore and Mumbai collaborated on making those fascinating creatures. He stated how having worked in computer games, commercials, animated features, and visual effects gave him myriad experiences spanning across all animation genres and helped him learn and grow.
Ghose started the conversation by calling Love & Monsters a highly imaginative movie because the characters that were created were not only monsters, but monsters that had a role and a sense of identity.
When asked about the difficulties of creating something so unique, Everitt mentioned, “The most challenging part while creating something like this is that you should be able to see the story. When someone gives me a brief, I close my eyes and try to visualize the scenes before creating it. Imagination is a good thing to learn and practice.”
The genre-mashing adventure film was made with a modest amount of big studio money and the interesting monster design work has made it unforgettable and well-loved.
Overall the day ended with the broadened perspective where experts enlightened on what outcome can be achievable if we scale up with in personal skillset and the technology advancement.