IndiaJoy, a large congregation of VFX, animation, gaming, esports and entertainment events and VFX Summit is one of the flagship events of it.
The event had simultaneous sessions going on in two tracks. Technicolor country head and FICCI AVGC Forum chairman 2021-22 Biren Ghose delivered a keynote address at the first session of the day. In track two Monolith Technologies Unreal authorised instructor and VP Ganesh R conducted a session on the convergence of VFX and Virtual Reality. He spoke about the combination of workflows of VFX and VR. Then he went on to talk about the concepts AR, VR and MR (mixed reality).
The following simultaneous sessions were based on the XR policy and government intervention. The panel discussion moderated by Animation Xpress chairman and co-founder Anil Wanvari included DNEG India head of Studio A R Seshaprasad, Famulus Media and Entertainment CEO Suchit Mukherjee along with Punnaryug Artvision Pvt. Ltd. Founder and FICCI AVGC Forum chairman Ashish Kulkarni. The panelists talked about the challenges faced by the industry, is there a need for government intervention for the VFX industry to grow and how the AVGC task force and policy makers are going to put everything to work.
Whereas on the other panel, the panelists spoke about the XP policy by the AVGC task force of the government. Dancing Atoms founder Saraswathi Vani Balgam, Technicolor country head and FICCI AVGC Forum chairman 2021-22 Biren Ghose, Varad Krishna from The Gain, Media and Entertainment Skill Council CEO Mohit Soni were the panelists at the session moderated by Shrikant Sinha from task force.
In the next panel discussion Reforming Academia to meet industry demand, the panelists spoke on the gap that can be bridged between the industry and the talent that is in demand and how to make reforms in education that can help the students to easily be a part of the industry. The panelists included Technicolor Creative Studios head of academies (India) Sandeep Sharma, DNEG India head of operations Puja Parikh, PhantomFX HR and operations VP Rajan E and Whistling Woods International VP and business head, CTO and head of emerging media Chaitanya Chinchlikar. IACH MD RK moderated the panel.
Another panel discussion for the day focused on Indian VFX industry and Evolving Trends – A brief account. Moderated by Digital Domain executive producer Praveen Kilaru, the panel comprised of Rotomaker owner Mike Yatham, Pixl Visual Effects founder Kartik G, Bot VFX creative head and visual effects supervisor Zameer Hussain and Hoop head of productions Navin Venkatesh. In this panel they spoke about how grooming of talent is important, why the studio needs to be employee centric, challenges faced while creating content for international projects and Indian projects and how does the studio feel when an experienced employee moves on and goes on to work for another studio.
An interesting panel discussion on Women in production was curated by VFX Summit and the speakers for the same were DNEG VFX artist manager Aparajita Sen, Hula Hoop founder and EP Priyanka Balasubramaniam, ABAI centre of excellence business head Shiji Sunil and Radhika G from NYVFXWAALA. The panelists spoke about their role and journey in the studios they have worked and how it is for a woman to work in VFX studios.
I-C-E Studio founder Anant Haldia conducted a session on Future of Digital Humans in VFX Metaverse and AI. Centroid Motion Picture CEO Phil Stilgoe was part of a session that talked about the Motion Capture pipeline for VFX.
The second half of day two had more sessions on the making of movies and commercials, that included RRR, Dune, Minnal Murali, Beast, Radheshyam, The Last Duel.