Incepted eight years ago by Arpan Gaglani and Anand Bhanushali in Mumbai as a boutique studio with a small team of 20 artists, Pune-based animation and VFX studio phimCGI has come a long way. With over 300 artists, they have also expanded their foothold with offices in two cities (Pune in Maharashtra and Thrissur in Kerala). On the occasion of the studio’s eighth anniversary, philmCGI Studio Head Amit Bhardwaj spoke to us about their future plans.
While we have witnessed Indian animation IPs doing well for Indian viewers and have seen great commercial success, Bhardwaj feels that they still feel the longing for Indian content with international appeal that will rock the global animation industry.
He envisions, “Content which could be equipotential with international productions. With this vision, philmCGI is developing a series of IPs for the domestic and international markets. Something which will raise the bar of quality standards for Indian IPs. Apart from this, we have a big lineup of International CG movies, animated series, content for OTT, and Bollywood feature films for this year”
On being asked about the recent projects that philmCGI has worked on, he shared, “I am happy to share with you that we have successfully completed an international animated series TANGRANIMALS for CUBE creative. It is a distinctively stylized adventure-comedy series for kids. A series filled with fun and adventure of Geo and his geometric creature friends. We have a number of projects in the pipeline which are to be released in 2022.”
He remarks that cloud and remote work has been the biggest technological shift we all have seen in these years. “Given the crisis brought on by the pandemic situation, studios throughout India and globally are now streamlined with the new format of working. The next big shift in technology is coming soon with VR (Virtual reality) and XR (Extended Reality) entering the story-telling process,” he shared.
According to him, animation as a genre will continue to delight audiences for many years to come. With animated films continuing to rise up in the blockbuster charts, VFX technological advances promise to unlock new doors into photo-realism providing ever-more lifelike characters and environments. “Being an incredibly versatile medium animation is also a highly effective tool in marketing, advertising, and even education,” he concludes.