“The Hyderabad facility will immediately start work on all the various high end disciplines like modeling, matchmoving, animation, lighting and compositing on our Hollywood feature films”
Excerpts from a conversation with R&H India Director Saraswathi Balgam:
What is the current spate of projects that R&H India is working on?
Rhythm & Hues is currently working as the lead Animation and VFX facility on “The Golden Compass” which is the first movie in Newline Cinemaâ€?s next big trilogy based on “His Dark Materials” books by Philip Pullman. We are also the lead facility on “Alvin & the Chipmunks” for Fox, “The Incredible Hulk” for Marvel, “The Mummy 3” for Universal Studios, and “The Kingdom” which is also for Universal.
With so many Movies on the floors, what are your expansion plans?
For the current movies that we have already signed, we have ample capacity between our facilities in Los Angeles and Mumbai to ensure that we can deliver at the highest quality standards that we are known for. However, looking at a longer term strategy for Rhythm & Hues, we have decided that we need to continue our gradual expansion in India to address some of our future plans for the next few years. Given the strategy to continue expansion in India, we decided that we should open a second facility in Hyderabad, rather than continue the growth just in our Mumbai facility.
Could you elaborate on the strategy behind the Hyderabad Facility?
Over the past 5 years, R&H has gradually grown our production facility in Mumbai, and today we have peaked at around 200 employees who help out in key roles on most of our feature productions. During this same period, R&H has been very fortunate to see our overall business grow dramatically resulting in us adding another 400 employees to our existing staff of 300 in Los Angeles. Despite this growth between the two facilities, we have not able to keep pace with the increased demand for our services and there is constant pressure to continue expansion but at the same time not compromise on the quality of our work nor the quality of our work environment. After much discussion about the pros and cons, we have decided the best strategy for us moving forward would be to open a second facility in India in the city of Hyderabad. We zeroed in on Hyderabad based on several reasons like availability of good quality infrastructure, and lower cost of living. However, the primary reason for setting up a second facility in Hyderabad rather than the option of just growing in Mumbai was to provide our current and future employees with a real choice.
There are many talented artists and employees that we have been talking to (both internally and externally) that have expressed a strong desire to work at Rhythm & Hues, however for several of them it has been very difficult to consider living in a city like Mumbai which has a very high cost of living, long and difficult commutes, and a crumbling infrastructure. Furthermore, the pressures of starting a family in Mumbai is high as well as the notion of owning a house in Mumbai has become virtually impossible for most. For others though, despite all these difficulties, Mumbai holds a special charm and a truly cosmopolitan lifestyle and there is no other city they would rather live in. Therefore, to cater to the needs of both these diverse groups, we decided to open a second facility in Hyderabad while still promoting our facility in Mumbai.
Would the R&H India production pipeline seamlessly extend between the facilities in Mumbai and Hyderabad, or will they work on different projects?
The Hyderabad facility will be operating in the same manner as our Mumbai facility. Today the Mumbai facility is completely and seamlessly integrated with the Los Angeles facility in terms of not only networks and systems infrastructure, but also production workflow and artist departments. The facility in Hyderabad will be an extension of this same model, with the same infrastructure, same workflow, and the same productions. Furthermore, the Hyderabad facility will immediately start work on all the various high end disciplines like modeling, matchmoving, animation, lighting and compositing on our Hollywood feature films, and will not be relegated to just entry level or labor intensive tasks. We want to grow the Hyderabad facility to be fully self sufficient much along the same lines as the current Mumbai facility.
When does the Hyderabad facility begin operations?
Currently the building we have chosen is still under construction, but we hope to be operational by early November 2007.
Where is it located?
We have leased a little over 25,000 sq. ft. in a beautiful new building that is part of “The V” IT park run by Ascendas. The V is one of the premiere IT parks located in the heart of HiTec City in Madhapur, Hyderabad and it is designed as a sprawling campus that has amazing facilities to cater to both the technical as well as the creative needs of our employees. We are very excited to have found this ideal premises for our new studio.
Additional Comments?
The decision to open a facility in Hyderabad starts a new chapter in the 20 year history of Rhythm & Hues. We carefully thought through this decision and had multiple rounds of discussion before we determined that it was truly in line with our long term strategy and the values of our company. We believe that starting a facility in Hyderabad will help Rhythm & Hues to continue attracting and retaining the top talent in India which has allowed us to deliver the highest quality of work. At the same time, this decision will also enable us to provide our employees with a great work environment and a high quality of life.