Waiting For A Marvel

With films such as Fan and Baahubali, the spotlight is now on the Indian visual effects industry which is poised to churn out Hollywood style content for Indian films soon. But why aren’t our visual effects Hollywood-style already?

- Jui Mukherjee

TECH A GROUP OF EXPECTANT

Marvel fans sit in an auditorium which is screening Avengers: Infinity War. The movie ends and the credits roll up. Under the animation and visual effects (VFX) section, they spot many Indian names and soon get into an animated discussion. This is a common scene nowadays; pick any VFX-heavy Hollywood movie, you’ll probably find Indian names in the credits.

It is no secret that Hollywood has been tapping India for quality VFX work and talent. In fact, international projects account for 73% of the revenue of the VFX industry in India, says a 2017 KPMG India-FICCI report. One of the big players is redchillies.vfx, the post-production studio of Shah Rukh Khan’s movie production company, Red Chillies Entertainment, which has worked for some top Hollywood films such as Sin City 2 (2014). Another is Prime Focus World, which merged with London-based Double Negative, a multiple Oscar-winning VFX studio with several Indians on its teams that worked on Pacific Rim Uprising (March 2018) and Avengers: Infinity War (April 2018). Since their merger in 2014, the two have shared talent and technical knowledge, greatly adding to the chops of artists in India, says the BSE-listed Prime Focus, which owns Prime Focus World.