BENGALURU: As 'The Jungle Book' was awarded the Oscar for best visual effects, there was a small group of ecstatic graphic designers in Bengaluru. The incredible feat of besting the likes of 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' and 'Doctor Strange', involved a group of 300 odd designers in the Bengaluru studio of MPC and few others at the London studio.
This is the second Oscar for the studio after Life of Pi too won in the same category in 2013.
Speaking to Express, Biren Ghose, Executive Director of Moving Picture Company (MPC), Bengaluru noted how the whole studio in Bengaluru had had their fingers crossed for a long time, as it was not an easy category to win. However, the 'Photo Real' computer graphics seen in the film created a new paradigm in handcrafted and digital movie space, he said.
While 'The Jungle Book' won this year, the company had missed it narrowly last year, as two of the movies it had worked in - The Martian and The Revenant - were nominated for best visual effects in 2016.
18 hours per frame
Explaining how each frame was generated, he said that the detailing in the movie was such that each frame took 18 hours to render. Rendering is a process by which images are synthesised from designing softwares. Each second has 22 frames under standard definition and twice the number of frames for 3D.
"The different frames had realistic renders of about 70-80 environments and hundreds of unique animals," Ghose noted.
During the film-making process, there was regular contact between the team in London and daily approvals for various processes were issued from the head office of the studio at Los Angeles.
The studio is looking forward to an exciting year, he said, as movies for which the Bengaluru studio had worked on, such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Aliens:Covenant is slated to be released this year.
Second win
In a release, Christian Roberton, Global MD of MPC Film said that this was the second Oscar awarded to MPC for Visual Effects, having won for their contribution to the VFX of Life of Pi in 2013. MPC has received nine previous nominations, he added.
"The Academy Award win comes after what has been an extremely successful awards season for MPC. Earlier in the year, The Jungle Book team won the BAFTA for Special Visual Effects, Critics Choice Award for Outstanding Visual Effects, HPA Award for Visual Effects, Annie Award for Character Animation in a Live Action Production and 3 VES Awards for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects," he said.