ASIFA CG Meetup 2nd Anniversary event in Mumbai

A big thank you to Ritesh Reddy for sending us this animated, eye-witness report on the 2nd Anniversary Celebration of the ASIFA CG Meetup that took place on the 20th of Jan.

“The long snaky queue outside K.C. College was evidence of Asifa’s regular CG Meetups. The fact that it was the 2nd Anniversary was the icing on the cake. The counter at the entrance handed out feedback forms, raffle tickets and IAD 2006 flyers? Recycling surplus might be a more eco-friendly solution though. The slideshow on the projector displayed pictures of past IAD melas evoking nostalgia and keeping the crowd entertained. The crowds poured in and Bob Dylan decided to give an impromptu rendition. His performance was cut short however by a case of laryngitis.”

“The show must go on however and was kickstarted by a presentation on ASIFA (The Association International du Film d’ Animation) which has been around for half a century. The indian chapter having been active for almost a decade aspires to the same ideals and goals as the international organization. A short brief on the history of the annual International Animation Day mela and the CG-Meetup followed.

NewsFlash! Pixion and Tata Elxsi’s Visual Computing Labs drop out of schedule at the last minute throwing the spotlight on Prime Focus. Merzin took the stage and spoke proudly of his company expanding from a single location to six locations in Mumbai, one each in Hyderabad and Chennai apart from their international locations in London and LA. He then proceeded to showcase Prime Focus’ showreel followed by an exacting showcase of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Saawariya’. From concept sketches to matte painting (painting textures from real-life onto 3D/CG models) Merzin took the viewers through the entire process. The process of matte painting was touted as invaluable in combining CG sets with live sets thereby adding depth and providing a realistic yet magical look n feel. The on-set green-screen shots enabled the VFX artists to match CG environments with the real sets. As one student enquired astutely as to why real sets were used at all since it was actually more challenging to match virtual sets. Merzin was quick to note that this was the very question posed to him by Sanjay Leela Bhansali towards the end of the production.

International Projects such as ‘Tales on the River Bank’ and ’28 Weeks Later’ were up next on the screen along with a sneak preview of ‘Agent Crush’. Prime Focus created CG miltary vehicles and simulated explosion sequences for the feature ’28 Weeks Later’. Matte painting was used to make London virtually empty in many of the scenes in the movie as the story required the city to be evacuated. Next up was the very innovative ‘Tales of the River Bank’ a remake of an old television series. This feature combined real puppetry with virtual sets created in CG. Scenes included sky replacements, CG smoke and particles as well as realflow liquid simulation. CG environments provided the backdrop for puppets and miniature models in the film. One highly impressed student requested an encore and the showreel projected yet another time the miracles VFX can produce.

Rhythm & Hues came on with the case study of the recently released ‘The Golden Compass’. First up was a short presentation on the features R&H worked on in 2007. These included Evan Almighty, The Kingdom, the just released Alvin & The Chipmunks and of course the case in study ‘The Golden Compass’. The unique creatures known as daemons were all designed and created by R&H from look development to lighting and texturing. These daemons are the soul apparent of every human character in the film and share the same eye structure/colour and some of them are capable of morphing into other avatars.

Prashant discussed the production partnership that exists between the R&H studios in LA and Mumbai. ‘The Golden Compass’ required 500 artists working in tandem between Los Angeles and Mumbai. Visual FX supervisors Raymond Chen and Bill Westenhofer guided the project from concept to completion. Prashant further outlined the early R&D process to the advanced pipeline stages. Over 150 employees of R&H India were actively involved in this project. Everything from pipeline programming to rendering tech is done in-house by R&H. The R&H India team went on to emphasise their 100% integration with the Los Angeles studio. The innovative Education Department at Rhythm and Hues which consists of supervisors, leads and mentors has succesfully trained freshers coming out of their apprentice program to directly work on these world-class VFX projects. In fact 50% of the R&H India team that worked on ‘The Golden Compass’ were freshers.”

Henry David Thoreau echoed this sentiment of extraordinary accomplishment in his immortal words:
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”