Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, an advanced real-time 3D tool has announced the second edition of ‘The Women Creators Program’ that is set to select Indian Subcontinent and ASEAN’s talented women producers and VFX supervisors to participate in a six week-long virtual training and mentoring program. The program started on 16 May 2022, saw top 21 women creators shortlisted from more than 178 applications who would be mentored by former fellowship graduates along with Unreal Engine evangelists.
The program is back in its second season with the aim to inspire and train women creators in the region to adopt Unreal in their workflow. In an attempt to expand the women creator’s community, Epic Games has been expanding its presence across the Indian subcontinent as well as the Southeast Asian regions. Participants include Ellen Xie, Bhavpreet Ghai Talwalkar, Ritika Bose, Jessica Tan, Zubaida Nila, Charu Tak, Geethika Dayala, Smitha Pandey, Pracheta Ahana Alam, Serena Dhillon, Bhumika Thakuria, Meenu Shekhawat, Abhirama Tejas, Aadhya Raj, Vrinda Sood, Aysha Ali, Sri Keerthi, Riza Qureshi, Vishakha Bardoloi, Poornima Meegammana and Morsal Alemi.
The Women Creators Program aims at uniting the UE Women creators who can produce more content using the Unreal Engine platform. The program will be progressing in a phased manner with phase one ending on 10 June with a pre-visualisation demo and evaluation, with the final training and demo day ending on 7 July 2022. The top 21 creators will be further assessed on their pre-visualisation project and the top 10 out of the lot will be moving ahead into the Phase 2 of the program.
This innovative program is in partnership with Open Air Films, ASIFA India and Perforce Software will be mentored by a creative women mentors panel including- Gayatri Rao, Hina Saiyada, Nida Arshia, Rouank Magoo, Rutul Patel, Gautami Vegiraju, Aayshman Pandey, Ananya Srivastava and Pragti Wadhwa. Asifa India’s president Saraswathi Balagam ‘Vani’ has been the mentor and programming director supported by a team led by Sanjay Khimesara.
The workshop training will cover relevant themes such as Animation and DCC workflows, World Building and Terrain Tools, Lighting and Post Processing, Material Editor, Sequence, Livelink and Blueprints.
Excited about the hosting a new set of women creators yet again, Epic Games Business Lead – India/SEA Shruti Verma said, “After the success of WCP the last edition we are all set to scale up the program It is our pleasure to interact and onboard some of the finest upcoming talents in the VFX creator community today. We are hopeful that the creators will be inspired by the program, and we are excited to see some promising plans over the next few weeks.”
Commenting on the launch of the program, Epic Games Tech Evangelist – India/ASEAN Arvind Neelakantan said, “We are thrilled to be back with the second edition of the Women Creators Program for the immensely talented women creators’ community in India. This immersive program for women creators does not only restrict to VFX supervisors but extends support to creative storytellers, producers, and animators to learn and adopt virtual production. We welcome all the wonder women with exceptional creative talents on this journey of professionally upskilling themselves with Unreal Engine.”
Katie Cole, Virtual Production Evangelist at Perforce – new sponsors of the 2022 edition – said, “Virtual Production is the future of storytelling. We are excited to partner with Epic to help these amazing women learn the tools needed to stay on the leading edge.”
All the applicants, who could not make it to top 21 creators have also been extended with an offer to get free training program on Unreal Engine.
Last Edition, 20 women producers and VFX professionals were selected to participate in a four-week virtual training and mentoring program. The program included reputed evangelists and women mentors like Anu Menon, filmmaker and director, Saraswathi Balgam ‘Vani’, Creative Producer, Dancing Atoms; Charuvi Agarwal, Founder and Director, CDL; Marta Ampudia Dalmau; Arvind Neelakantan, Tech Evangelist at Epic Games; Dean Reinhard, Technical Account Manager, Epic Games; Jack Condon, Evangelist, Epic Games; Karan Parikh, Founder, Green Rain Studios and Unreal Authorized Instructor Partner, Epic Games.