Srushti Creative Media has an ‘awe’-inspiring VFX journey
HYDERABAD: When MBA graduate K Ramesh started his own creative visual design studio in 2013, little did he know that his venture would grow to design VFX (Visual Effects) for blockbusters like Bahubali and Karthikeya in a such a short time.
So when ‘Srushti Creative Media’ received a National Award for 'the Best VFX' for a comparatively smaller film Awe, it came as a surprise. However, The creative heads at Srushti unanimously agree that Prashant Varma’s Awe was the most creatively challenging and original to execute.
"The Title sequence for Awe was a daunting task. We had to recreate the movie in illustrations but without revealing it to the audience. The jury at the National Awards lauded the creative efforts put into the film," says COO Eshwar Jabba. The passion for creating visual brilliance was what kept CEO Ramesh and his team wanting more.
What started out as a smaller company designing visual effects for TV commercials and 3D animations for corporates went on to foray into the world of cinema with director Chandoo Mondeti’s Karthikeya. "It was the year full of painstaking manual labour that was shown in those two and half hours of Karthikeya. As it was the first outing in the industry for both Chandoo (Mondeti) and me, this brought more pressures and responsibilities. We managed to create some realistic sequences of a ‘snake’ that landed usin trouble with the censor board. They only cleared the film after we submitted the entire animation process as proof," recalls K.Ramesh.
The success of Karthikeya landed them the huge responsibility of creating visual effects for Bahubali. Important sequences like the War sequence and the Bull-fight sequence are examples of the kind of realistic and labour intense graphics the company works around. "Technology has multiplied by several folds and there are newer automated tools in the field of VFX, but they can’t reach the level of perfection that is created by manual work. We had to work for hours together to create real life-like sequences for Bahubali. To multiply the crowds and sync it with the scene during the war was one of the most difficult tasks," says Srushti’s Project Manager Prudhvi Raju Palakapati.
The team of now is keen on exploring the recently emerged areas of Immersive Experience and Virtual Realty in creating Special Effects for their upcoming projects. "Hyderabad has the best ecosystem for VFX and SFX ( Special Effects) in the country and the government’s interest in this field will only take it forward. If the filmmakers allot more funds to this area, we have all the ability to create VFX that would match international standards," says K.Ramesh. With several passionate individuals taking up this field, the future of VFX and SFX in Telugu cinema seems quite bright.