BENGALURU: Thousands of movie buffs have watched the recently released Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. However not many know the name, Pete Draper who was key to the movie’s huge success.
Pete Draper is the co-founder of Hyderabad-based Makuta VFX, that did the graphics and visual affects of the movie.
“In terms of length I think this is the longest I have spent with any movie in India. It was five years of my life. We spent sleepless nights with the production team. I would be at home hardly for four hours especially during the production. We would sleep in the studio itself,” he says at the Bengaluru GAFX Conference.
Allaying fears of an aspiring animation artist who was troubled at the low pay prospects in the animation industry, on the last day of GAFX Conference, Pete advises, “I think you should do what interests you rather than running after degrees or money. Money will follow after you find out what you are interested in. The challenge is how you can be different from others and what are the different things that you can bring to a studio,” he sagely adds. He, however, was not too far from the reality of the industry and pointed out the low pay scales – Rs 20,000 for a senior artist and somewhere around 10,000 and less for a newbie. “Your prospects become better with your performance,” he adds.
Taking about his trajectory in finding his feet and his passion, Pete says. “I did my graduation in something that was completely unrelated to animation and that is engineering and IT. I got into animation after my university.”
He is Clueless About his Team’s Schooling
He however says that he does not look at the degree of a person rather what he or she can do when hiring. “We are hiring all the time. We really do not care what degree you have as long as you are good at your skills. I think there are a number of people in the industry who follow the same approach. In my own studio I have no clue about the educational background of the 90 per cent of my workers,” he says.
In fact, Pete says that he would like to hire people without any degrees. “I think people without degrees are those who have learnt things themselves and in a way are likely to show more commitment to new ideas,” he says.
Based in India for the past eight years, Pete is married to an Indian. He has been part of around 15 films down South some of which are big hits such as the Sudeep starrer, Eega.
Next Project
Although tight lipped about his next project, Pete revealed that his next big project was a movie around a socio-politico theme from the Tamil industry.