The VFX industry in India is just over 15 years old now and there haven’t been many VFX supervisors who have stood the test of time, but there is one woman, who began her journey with one of the pioneers in the VFX space – Prime Focus – and contributed immensely towards adding life to over 100 feature films.
The woman in question is none other than this year’s IIFA and Screen Awards winner for visual effects of ‘Kick’ – Reupal Rawal. She has been one of the integral team members in building what Prime Focus is today and worked very closely with Merzin Tavaria on not only working on building the VFX teams but also train some of the country’s finest artists in the space.
Speaking exclusively to AnimationXpress.com, Reupal says: “The move was a very difficult decision for me to take; having worked at one organization for over 15 years builds an emotional and personal connect with you, so it was never going to be easy to part ways, but everyone has to move on in life and I believe the time was right for me.”
Having started her professional journey as a programmer with a private firm; she landed up in one of India’s earliest animation firms Crest Communications as a CG Artist, where she learnt the technicalities and excelled in 3D CG imagery and slowly progressed to being a Motion GFX artist and an online editor at Star TV in 1999-2000, where she worked on Max, smoke, Flint and Flame, following this she also had a brief stint at Electronic Arts to explore web-designing and then finally she found her calling as an online editor at Prime Focus, making her way up the food chain to being the Senior VFX Supervisor over the years.
On her appointment as creative director at Riva Animation & VFX, creative head and partner, Viral Thakkar adds: “As a company we always believe in pushing the envelope in bringing out the best results for our clients, Reupal has been around in the industry for many years and I have personally known her for some time as well. Her experience along with the vision that we have for the company will help harness great positive results in the near future.”
Riva Animation & VFX is on the verge of completing a year in the industry and has already worked on some big ticket Bollywood blockbusters like: PK, Baby, Dil Dhadakne Do and ABCD 2, with many projects in the pipeline.
“With this new chapter in my professional career path, I wish to work on revolutionary projects and I am confident that my 18 years of overall experience in the VFX space can come to good use to Riva. In my new role I will also be expediting the recruitment and business development processes,” ends Reupal.
The duo of Viral Thakkar and Reupal Rawal will certainly pack a punch in the way Riva Animation & VFX continues to surge ahead in this monopolistic industry, where they will aim to build a state of the art studio that offers high-end visual effects and facilitate the client’s needs judiciously. As Reupal rightly stated, they understand creativity and respect it as well.