The Hindu Business Line : Hollywood visual effects experts are here

Hyderabad, Nov. 4 Top guns of the visual effects industry from Hollywood are in India testing waters and evaluating the possibility of partnerships and mentoring and guiding the large latent talent pool.

The team led by the Executive Director of The Visual Effects Society, Mr Eric Roth, and comprising Mr Tim McGovern, who worked on Disney feature Tron and Total Recall, and Mr Peter Chiang, engaged with Batman and Labyrinth, are touring five cities — Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai — evaluating the work handled by Indian companies and artistes.

Mr Roth told Business Line it was a phase of networking with Indian professionals and companies engaged in providing visual effects. The tour will provide Indian artistes an opportunity to understand global trends and explore symbiotic growth opportunities.

The Visual Effects Society (VES) is an organisation representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including artistes, technologists, model makers, educators, producers in all areas of entertainment —film, television, commercial, music and videos. It has over 1,500 members across 17 countries and seeks to partner and educate industry players.

Lack of specialists

“The society runs programmes in Los Angeles and in the UK to help hone up skills with practical training. We plan to explore similar initiative in India too,” Mr Roth said.

“The Indian industry is growing but there is the problem of lot of generalists rather than specialists. This is because there is no clear cut segmentation of various expertise in this industry here. However, this will change as it gets bigger and more professional,” Mr Tim McGovern said.

Increasingly global players, particularly those in the US, Canada and the Europe, are looking at bringing about cost savings where India presents with a huge business opportunity. However, the industry itself would need to get a lot more professional, Mr Tim McGovern said.

The Regional Sales Manager of Autodesk Media and Entertainment Division, Mr Pankaj Kedia, said that the Indian animation sector, of which visual effects is a growing part, is expected to touch $1 billion by 2010. Already there are signs of mergers and acquisitions in the special effects segment, a pointer towards a growing business opportunity.

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