After two days of wonderful sessions, GAFX 2018 had a packed schedule for day three as well. Kalinga hall showcased how the AVGC industry in Banglore works with speakers from Technicolor India, Kranti Sarma, Cyrus Mistry, Sal Umerji and Vamsi Ayyagari. While another section of Lalit saw the curtain raiser with the incubation of AVGC Centre of Excellence (COE). The logo for the same was revealed at the do and the GoK and ABAI initiative showed some insights from the project.
The centre will have facilities like performance capture, AR/VR lab, VFX camera system, Colour correction, high speed camera, render farm, incubation centre, location scanner and body scanner as well which is the first time in India. The team takes pride in presenting the centre to the industry.
Arul Moorthy said while presenting the functioning of COE,” This centre is for complementing the studios and not competing with them. It is a dream come true for ABAI and me as well. We hope the AVGC industry makes great use of it.”
The panel which included Arul Moorthy, Ganesh Papanna, BS Srinivas, Navin Kumar and Satyanarayana discussed the future of the industry with COE now being an integral part of it.
The discussions and sessions were getting informative with each passing hour and it was then, that the crowd cheered when Tom Reed showed how the VFX worked for the Oscar winning Blade Runner.
Reed made the session interesting with the showreel of the making of Blade Runner. “It takes nine months to do a handful of minutes in a film, that’s how VFX works,” he added.
The next session was so much fun with students exploring the various kinds of animations from 2D, 3D to even clay animation. A few famous animated ads made way to the screen and Suresh Eriyat began his session showcasing the work his studio did. The session was mind-blowingly engaging with him showing his national award-winning film Tokri doing all the talking.
“The story needs to be grasping. More people need to make films. They need to start thinking films and love our own national animation films first,” said Eriyat.
The film has managed to receive 122 awards and is a pride of Indian animation for sure!
Creative edge was yet another session focusing on the medium of animation. The panel on the dais had a quite interesting debate as to which of the two, digital and traditional animation is more efficient. Each animator present had his own views but the discussion was engaging for the audience present. The panel included Jason Schugardt, Suresh Eriyat, Vaibhav Kumaresh, Kevin Hudson and Tom Reed.
Kumaresh felt that technology sometimes doesn’t help one enjoy the film. But Kevin found the booming technology very important as CG helps one create anything.
“Technology can be amazing in the right hands and a total crap in wrong hands,” said Reed while summing up the context of the discussion on cutting edge.
The sessions were enjoyed and the crowd rushed to the next session which was the highlight of the day. It talked about the Kannada films. Adarsh Eshwarappa spoke about the evolving of the Kannada film industry and showed few shots from films to which the crowd cheered and applauded crazily. The presentation ended with the next panel for discussion joining Eshwarappa on the dais, which had personalities from the Kannada industry like Shanthi Sagar, Yateesh Venkatesh, Srimurali and others. As Srimurali entered, the hall started cheering and applauding. They talked about the film that won accolades for VFX, Gultoo.
The happy audience left the hall for a short break as the preparations for the most awaited part was going on. It was time to acknowledge the talent present in Bengaluru. With the award session beginning soon, the cultural show engaged the audience. The competitions carried in the campus of Lalit were grand and showed a plethora of artwork from the budding artists. And now, it was time to award the best!
Biren Ghose commenced the valedictory award function, “ABAI is delighted to present a varied number of opportunities to students, professionals and any small and large industry,” he said and passed on the mic to Gaurav Gupta.
“We all wish the industry to be vibrant like Biren and ABAI and grow in leaps and bounds. The AVGC industry would be the next sunrise sector after IT,” Gupta said.
With many screenings and showreels happening for the first time for the general audience, KBITS from Bengaluru also used the opportunity to introduce the new name of their brand which changed from KBITS to K-Tech.
The entire ABAI committee was present on the dais and were delighted to present late Bhimsen Khurana with lifetime achievement award.
Rashabh Bhutani was awarded for winning the VES award in January 2018 and he also received a standing ovation for his great work in the sector.
Competitions varied from story writing to 3D modelling, 3D game art, hackathon, character animation, clay sculpting, digital painting to name a few. The delighted students and professionals waited in anticipation to hear out the winners’ names. Srinivas talked about the newly undertaken DAC (Digital Art College) program which has 27 colleges as partners who have converted their colleges to DAC centres.
From zero to three and now 27, this has been a journey and is a big thing said Srinivas.
Acknowledging the hardwork of all that went behind the successful three day event, Papanna thanked all and GAFX closed its curtains for 2018 promising to be bigger in 2019!