ICAT to set up 'composite studio'

Image College of Arts, Animation and Technology (ICAT), a digital media college, is setting up an in-house 'compositing studio' at its premises at a cost of Rs 35 lakh.

"The studio will be used to take shots for compositing, wherein the background is removed and replaced with other footage that includes animation. It can be used during post-production or even during a shoot," said V Natarajan, director of Image Infotainment Limited.

ICAT offers a one-year full-time post graduate programmes in advanced digital media consisting of 1,450 hours of training by national and international faculty in visual effects, 3D animation and game development.

The college is run by the Institute of Multimedia Arts and Graphic Image (IMAGE), which has 16 regional centres in India and overseas centres in Mauritius, China and Australia.

The compositing studio was inaugurated by Barrie Osborne, producer of the Matrix trilogy and the Lord of The Rings movies amongst others.

Addressing the media and students of ICAT after the inauguration, Osborne said, "As more work (visual effects, animation and computer graphics) comes to India and people become acquainted with the talent here, this is the next industry (after software services) that can grow and become successful."

Talking about the prospects of outsourcing visual effects and animation work from Hollywood to India, he said that he was considering setting up a company with Madhu Sudhan, advisor, ICAT, and visual effects producer of movies like Aalavandan and Abhay.

He also confirmed that the mega production of Paani that he was working on with director Shekhar Kapur will be launched in the "not-so-distant future."

Commenting on the importance of visual effects overriding that of characters and story-telling, he said that The Million Dollar Baby which won the Oscar Award in the best picture category had no major effects.

"Great story-telling works over visual effects, visually everything should support the story," Osborne pointed out.

According to an Arthur Andersen study on the entertainment and media sector, animation by Indian producers alone is expected to be in the order of $1.5 billion in 2005.