Digital Skin Grafting VFX

To begin with, Indian artists did an in-depth study of the European complexion. We found that white skin reflects more light and has less shadow when compared to dark skin and is translucent in some areas. Therefore a simple color correction of the hero's skin would not achieve the desired effect. For the shoot a London based young white lady with a fresh complexion and flushed cheeks was chosen and with the help of Cinematographer Mr. K.V.Anand every single shot of the hero was repeated with her because lighting conditions change in every shot. After the final edit all the 630 hero shots and 630 girl shots were scanned in 4K resolution. Each of the 9000 scanned frames where Rotoscoped to separate the body parts (face, hands, legs etc.). The white lady's skin was mapped onto the Super Star's image using Eyeon "Digital Fusion" software. Thus the Super Star got his glowing white complexion. The technique behind Super Star Rajini's European complexion in the film. A White lady's skin was mapped onto the Super Star's image using Eyeon “Digital Fusion” software.

News: Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: Autodesk Technology Enhances Olympic Experience for Millions of Viewers

"Birds Nest" Stadium Visualizations, Olympic Mascots and TV Content All Shaped with Autodesk Software (August 22, 2008) Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) entertainment and design software was used to create cutting-edge content for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Leading digital content creators relied on Autodesk technology to deliver Olympic projects as diverse as stadium visualizations and mascot design, to broadcast graphics and commercials for global brands. China Central Television (CCTV) CCTV is China's largest national television network. CCTV created its Olympics One Dream, One World and Olympics Age packaging and promotions with the Autodesk Smoke finishing system. As well, the broadcaster is using Smoke daily for content production during the Olympic Games. Crystal CG Crystal CG is the official graphic design supplier for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Using Autodesk 3ds Max software, Crystal CG created architectural visualizations of the Beijing "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium and related facilities. 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya software were also used on TV commercials and promotions, and an educational sports program. In addition, Crystal CG produced the five "Fuwa" Olympic mascot cartoons with Maya. Psyop/Stink Psyop/Stink used Autodesk Maya animation software to create three TV commercials for Adidas' "Together in 2008, Impossible is Nothing" Olympic Games campaign: Together, Zheng Zhi and Hu Jia. The spots include computer-generated crowds with a pencil-sketch look. "Almost every shot in these Adidas spots involved creating assets in Autodesk Maya, and compositing them with live-action footage," said Tony Barbieri, technical director at Psyop. "Using Maya, we quickly populated scenes with hundreds of varied cheering fans. There were about thirty variations of fans, all modeled and rigged in Maya. By using just one rig for each gender, we were able to capture motion and create custom animation cycles to populate the entire crowd." Psyop provides 3D animation, visual effects and digital content for the advertising market. Seven Network The in-house team at Australia's Seven Network used Smoke to deliver Olympics promotional materials for Channel Seven. "Smoke is the only system capable of handling the phenomenal amount of work accomplished at Seven. As our day-to-day, get-it-out system, Smoke is absolutely invaluable," said Suzique Doughty, senior editor, Channel Seven. suedlich-t Visual effects and animation studio suedlich-t relied on Maya and Autodesk Combustion software to shape Olympic trailers for the ARD and ZDF German public broadcasting networks. The trailers feature live-action footage of athletes morphing into 3D ink-strokes and ink-drops. Combustion was used for compositing and visual effects. suedlich-t used the Maya software's fluid and particle systems extensively for transitions between athletes and ink. About Autodesk Autodesk, Inc., is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art Digital Prototyping solutions to help customers experience their ideas before they are real. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to visualize, simulate and analyze real-world performance early in the design process to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

P9 Design creates publicity design campaign

P9 Design, the film publicity design vertical of Percept Holdings Group’s international film-marketing company P9 Integrated, has created publicity design for C-Kkompany. The designing company has done posters, stills and billboards for the Balaji Motion Pictures upcoming film, releasing on 29 August. P9 claims that it has designed the publicity campaign for C-Kkompany by keeping the unique theme, subject and genre of the film in mind. The USP of the film was kept in mind while designing the posters and stills and a major thrust was giving to the onscreen chemistry that the characters share. All the creative have backdrop and images of middle class settings in Mumbai connoting the theme of the film. P9 recently has also embarked in providing website designing and promo designing services.
P9's film chronicles include Shaurya, Summer 2007, Hastey Hastey, Dus Kahaniyan, Dhol, Bombay To Bangkok, Return Of Hanuman, Mumbai Salsa and Loins Of Punjab. Their upcoming films include Rubaru, Right Yaa Wrong, Rang Rasiya, Aashayein, Firaaq, Pankh, Manikantan, Kanchivaram, Tasveer 8x 10 among others, said a company release.

Autodesk HumanIK Middleware

Autodesk® HumanIK® animation middleware is a run-time solution that enables dynamic in-game character animation. Integrated within the game engine, animators and game designers can now alter animations on the fly, letting characters interact dynamically and realistically with their environments. Optimized for next-generation platforms, HumanIK consists of a run-time full-body inverse kinematics (IK) solver, as well as a run-time retargeting engine for characters of differing size, proportions and skeletal hierarchy. By providing integration with Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® MotionBuilder™ software, HumanIK delivers full-fidelity playback of content authored with the Autodesk 3D solutions. HumanIK enables truly compelling in-game animation, unlocking the potential for truly innovative next-generation gameplay. HumanIK is a highly modular, multi-threaded library, optimized for PlayStation® 3, Xbox® 360™, PowerPC®, PC, PlayStation® 2, and Xbox® platforms. HumanIK offers developers a modular component for the development of their animation tool-chain and run-time game engine.

The Key Benefits are:

- Dynamic Target Assignment

- Run-Time Retargeting

- On-target IK System

- Consistency with Autodesk 3D Authoring Applications

- Pipeline Considerations

- Authoring & Blending Animation Clips

More at autodesk: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=9491249&siteID=123112

Download white paper

VFX of 'Kahani Hamaray Mahabharat Ki'

Mumbai-based Color Cubes which recently won the Global India TV Honor award for its cutting edge VFX works in Aahat Season 3, is now doing the VFX for Balaji Productions' Kahani Hamaray Mahabharat Ki, being aired on 9X. Some of the decisive scenes done by Color Cubes include the baby Krishna and Sheshnag scene, creation of a 3D wolf character, the goddess Ganga and water splash scene, all of which have already gone on air. For creation of all these key shots, the VFX Company has done an extensive work on character modeling, water simulation, particle simulation, caustics, amongst other CG and VFX techniques. Said Suraj Rao, Creative Head of Kahani Hamaray Mahabharat Ki, "We are getting a good response from the audiences all around. Now the TV format is changing, and lot of VFX is involved in the serials going on air these days. We have tried to use high-quality VFX for the scenes in the serial and have achieved to reach quality level of CG work for the small screen. The VFX work done by Color Cubes is really appreciable." Explaining the baby Krishna and Seshnag scene, Himanshu said, "For this particular shot we had to put lot of effort creating the CG naag (snake) and rain and to composite it with live artist and water, along with the creation of water simulation." "We also had to work on the rain and water interaction with the artist because we made CG rain and water splashes. The CG water splashes have been added digitally using particle effect which needed an extensive research to give the desired look that the director asked for." For the goddess Ganga and water splash scene, Color Cubes composited CG water with real water and created CG water splash, waves and tornado which later converts in the form of goddess Ganga. Explaining one of the critical shots from the series, Himanshu explained, "One of the most complicated shots was creating a CG environment and a CG 3D wolf. Earlier we tried shooting a dog and transforming him into a wolf, but we couldn't do it because of the dogs' walking style and his tongue, which is always out of the dogs' mouth. Later we created a CG wolf and environment which we composited with the artist, shot in the chroma background." Few of the other sequences which took a lot of effort included camera motion shots, matte cutting, character modeling, complex compositing shots and rope removal, to name a few.

Blinkx launches web TV links site

Video search specialists Blinkx will roll out a web search tool today that aggregates all the British TV shows legally available free online. Blinkx Remote indexes all the current shows from the broadband catch-up services including the BBC iPlayer, Channel 4's 4OD, ITV.com and Demand Five, allowing users to sort by genre and title or through a search field.
Suranga Chandratillake, the Blinkx chief executive, said the service was plugging a gap between universal search and the rapid growth of web TV services.
"We constantly monitor video on the web to see what content people are finding and indexing, and what content people are looking for on a daily basis," Chandratillake said.
"One trend we spotted in both the UK and US is the growth of free online, full-length TV shows - in the UK that is driven by the iPlayer and in the US by Hulu.
"With normal search the results would be mixed up with clips, or videos people had made about shows and put on YouTube," he added.
Chandratillake said that Blinkx wanted to keep its Remote search tool as simple as possible to use and so it will only index streamed content rather than downloads or subscription services with complex sign-up procedures.
Blinkx does not have partnerships deals with broadcasters to operate the service, but uses publicly available programme data in the same way Google News indexes information from news sites.
The service indexes around 1,000 UK shows and between 300 and 400 from the US, although some US broadcasters, including CBS, allow their programmes to be viewed online in the UK. "There is only going to be more and more TV on the web, but people don't often know what it out there," Chandratillake said. He added that he would not rule out introducing a second tier of paid-for services at a later stage, adding that Blinkx wanted to introduce a widget version of Remote so that users can customise listings around their favourite programmes and embed listings on their own site or social network profile.

Chandamama

Chandamama was conceptualised by legendary filmmakers B. Nagi Reddi and his friend Chakrapani. Their reason for launching Chandamama was to familiarise the post-Independence generation with Indian tradition, folklore, mythology and history in the form of stories.
Chandamama has recently been acquired by the Mumbay-based Geodesic. Incorporated in 1999, Geodesic is a publicly traded company with offices in the US , UK , Sweden and Hong Kong . The company has developed the popular universal instant messaging system Mundu (http://www.mundu.com/). Recently the company was awarded the Red Herring Small Cap 100 award – the only Indian company to be included in the Red Herring Small Cap 100 list.
Apart from a highly successful print edition and a rapidly developing online portal (http://www.chandamama.com/), Chandamama is also foraying into films and video production with its bank of over 15,000 exclusive stories. Interactive books and CDs are also part of Chandamama's efforts to reach out, educate and entertain today's young minds. Readers of Chandamama Tamil, Telugu and Hindi can now find their favourite stories in their language at www.chandamama.com/tamil, www.chandamama.com/telugu and www.chandamama.com/hindi. The sites contain a mix of popular Chandamama stories from mythology, historical, comical to contemporary. This takes the number of languages on the website to four including English.
Chandamama.com has also put a part of its 60 year archive online. Currently early editions of Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu can be found on the site. The other languages, as well as all 60 years back issues will go live soon.

Get the domain name you want

Nearly 40 years after the virtual world started, companies and individuals will be able to apply for any address on the Internet and not be limited to just the 21 suffixes like .com (accounting for 80 per cent), .net and .info or country-specific appendages like .in for India. Top-level domain names till date were restricted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) -- an international not-for-profit body that oversees the structure of the Internet. Its board, according to Paul Twomey, president and CEO of ICANN, has now given the go-ahead for total freedom on domain name and the final version is expected to be published in early-2009. Companies and netizens can thus have unlimited choices such as .indian, .mumbai, .delhi, .bangalore, .chennai, . paris, .timbuctoo, .dilipkumar, .amitabhbachhan or .whateveryouwant. Like all desired things, these would come for a price: Rs 40 lakh to Rs 2 crore. Indian corporate houses like the Tatas, Birlas or Reliance [Get Quote], for instance, could apply for .tata, .birla or .reliance and the fee will not dent their balance sheet. If they get the domain name, they could, in turn, give each employee a .tata or .birla or .reliance email identity. The move is also expected to prompt many registrars, both Indian and foreign, to apply for registry status and form joint ventures with foreign companies. It's a lucrative business and requires low investments since the basic infrastructure is in place. ICANN appoints registries, such as Verisign for .com, to sells domain names. The registries pay ICANN only 25 cents (around Rs 10) per domain name. What remains after deducting costs is their profit. Registrars, in turn, buy domain names from registries and pay them $6 (about Rs 245) for each domain name in addition to the Rs 10 to be paid to ICANN. Net 4, an Indian domain name registrar, has already firmed up plans to apply for registry status, according to its CEO, Jasjit Sawhney. Meanwhile, ICANN said that trademark and intellectual property owners will get priority. Applicants also have to show "business plan and technical capacity". Disputed domains will be auctioned to the highest bidder. ICANN also reserves the right to reject a domain on "morality or public order" grounds, and the matter may go to an international arbitration committee. Critics however say the instances of domain squatting (buying names and selling them at higher prices) could increase. Currently, there are over 76 million .com names, while .biz -- the 10th-most popular -- has 2 million. There are 5 million .info names with around 650,000 added every year, and around 440,000 .in (India) registrations. An increase in clutter might make the .com stand out even more. "The .in domain did not take off, so the new TLDs will not affect the internet and .com will always rule," said Vijay Mukhi, an Internet expert.
Courtesy - Business Today

Combustion Lessons Download

Combustion 2008 is a powerful stand-alone desktop solution for creating stunning visual effects. It is a resolution-independent vector paint, animation, editing, and 2D/3D compositing software application for multi-format work, from the web to video and HDTV to feature film. In addition to its robust and cost-effective toolset, Combustion offers the benefit of portability. Whether you are a motion graphics designer, animator, visual effects artist, or web designer, Combustion empowers you with the tools you need to create outstanding visual effects for your video projects, film projects, or web projects. Download the combustion lessons

Dashaavtaram Movie

The Rs 65-crore film is also concentrating on a wider release in non-southern markets, with about 60 prints being released. This is perhaps the largest release a regional film has witnessed. In fact, Sivaji, which released with about 40 prints for the non-Southern markets, was only released with 12 prints in its first week and was then gradually increased with an additional 28 prints in the second week.Dasavatharam will be the first South Indian film to be screened in the New Jersey and New York areas, with three Tamil and two Telugu prints. The producer of the movie Oscar Productions is into promoting the movie and spent almost 15 million rupees for just audio launch and now is trying to make even US president to watch his movie.As per latest buzz, talks are on with the help of the producers US counterparts with Whitehouse officials to arrange for the screening. Dasavatharam story begins with an episode set in the 12th century, and then looks at coincidences. In this, Kamal plays Nambi, a staunch Vaishnavite priest. Other characters are an American, a Chinese man, a CBI officer from Andhra Pradesh, an old lady, a leader from Afghanistan, a Scheduled Tribes’ leader, George Bush, a Punjabi and one character, who looks like Kamal normally does.Dashaavtaram one of the challeging movie for kamal hassan after Indian. Kamal plays 10 characters in this film. The movie a tsunami set have been erected in Mutukadu.a 100 ft wall have been used for it at 50,000 sq ft to make it look real in film.The movie has a set designed like the White House.
Dasavatharam, directed by noted director, K. S. Ravikumar. It stars Kamal Haasan, who plays ten different roles, Asin Thottumkal , who plays two different roles, Mallika sheravat and Jayaprada in the lead roles with Napolean, Nagesh, Santhana Bharathi and Ravikumar himself in other pivotal roles.
In Dashaavtaram Kamal hassan plays 10 roles are likely to be a brahmin priest, a dwarf, a scientist, a fighter, a black man, a tourist guide, an old woman, a beggar, a young lady and an emperor
In Dashaavtaram Currently confirmed roles of Kamal hassan in the film are a 130 year old man, an old spiritual woman, a beautiful young lady and a rural tourist guide named Udhar Mani.he also plays the role of acting like a 7feet tall man which was filmed using modern technology
Mallika Sherawat appearing in Dasavatharam is old news. But her role seems to be very interesting. Reliable source revealed that the sultry actress has donned on the role of a CIA agent.

Download Wallpapers

Official website of Dashaavtaram

Comic Books Database

ComicBookDB.com is the fastest-growing comic database on the web. The first goal of this project is to catalog every comic, graphic novel, manga, creator, character and anything else that could possibly relate to the field of comics.But that is only the beginning. The second goal of ComicBookDB.com is to make this wealth of information as useful as possible. This means making as many connections as possible from one issue, one creator, one character to everything else in the site.Best of all, ComicBookDB.com is built by anyone and everyone who wants to help. Fans, creators, publishers, anyone who has information that is useful is welcome to register a free account and start contributing.So feel free to jump in, we hope you enjoy yourself!Firefox Users: Give the ComicBookDB.com toolbar a try!

A unique 360 degree video entertainment portal

Mypopkorn.com, launched by Essel Group’s Digital Media Convergence Ltd, hosts webisodes (encapsulated TV episodes) of television programmes drawn from leading TV channels. Impressed by the novel concept channels like Zee, Sony, Star, Eros entertainment, Subhash Gai and others have joined hands with DMCL to present webisodes, each one being a three minute version of a 30-minute episode, related to drama, romance, comedy, fiction, or soap, reality, lifestyle, movie clips, soap operas, sports, and news. By tracking the visitor’s surfing pattern, mypopkorn.com can help customise content and features that are best suited to an individual. He or she can also interact with people with similar preferences, integrate on all devices and post their opinion on the webisodes. Another great feature of this website is MyStage — a platform provided for users to showcase their talent. Instant fame is just a click away if you aspire to become a singer, actor, reporter, spiritual guru, or a DJ. All you need to do is to upload your videos to the site. You can get even paid for it, and this would depend on the number of times the video gets viewed. A recent success story at MyStage is that of Ms Indira Naik whose upload helped her to launch her music video, successfully. According to Alexa Ranking mypopkorn.com, launched barely two months ago, is ranked among the top 12,000 websites and its viewership is around two lakhs, a day.

Introducing Adobe Media Player

Adobe Media Player software provides viewers with control and flexibility to watch what they want, when they want — whether online or offline. Users can download and subscribe to their favorite Internet TV content and manage their personal video library for viewing at their convenience. With a broad catalog of videos and shows from the leading media companies and networks, you have endless choices. Pick the episodes you love to watch, and Adobe® Media Player software will track new episodes and download them so you can watch whenever you want.
Install Adobe media player

India’s First Expo on Animation, VFX & Gaming

Visit Expo Website for more information

CGTantra has partnered with Nine to organize CGTExpo 08 - India’s First Career Guidance and Computer Graphics Technology Expo on Animation, Visual Effects and Gaming. Conceived with CGTantra’s philosophy of “Learn Inspire Grow”, CGTExpo aims to provide an insight into a career in Animation, VFX and Gaming as well as a cross pollination among the Studio’s, technology professionals and the student fraternity. Activities planned at the Expo include a Job Fair, an Education Fair, a Technical Exhibition, Master classes, Showcases, Seminars, Student Competitions, Art Galleries, Entertainment Zone etc. Set to be the largest such event in India, it will be held over 2600 square meter of air-conditioned space at Bombay Exhibition Centre, Western Express Highway, Goregaon (E), Mumbai on 24th and 25th May, 2008.

Just playing games

Can you run a multi-crore business venture by just playing games? Yes, say India's gaming prodigies -- Somil Gupta and Sangam Gupta. The brothers eat games, drink games, sleep games and are set to mint millions from games!
Their company -- Trine Entertainment Ltd -- deals with high-end game development, offering a variety of 3D interactive entertainment for PCs, consoles and mobile phones. The games have unique plots based on Indian landscapes and characters from mythology.
If some of the games have real life streets of Mumbai as their landscape, some other games are based on the myths of Indian gods like Krishna, Shiva and Hanuman. According to Somil, the goal of the game is to save the future of India from all evil, including Ravan. "This, is localisation at its best, by incorporating characters and stories that we've all grown to love and cherish," says 30-year-old Somil Gupta, managing director, Trine Entertainment.
"Our first game -- 'Streets of Mumbai' -- is scheduled to be launched in by May end or early June. Racing games are one of the most popular genres for video games in India, so we decided on to develop 'Streets of Mumbai,' which is all about car racing in Mumbai," explains Somil.
Sangam has been developing his own game engine technology for past three years which is currently powering the games at Trine Game Studios.
He, along with younger brother Sangam, ventured out to do what they loved most, play around with games and more games and tap the booming market not just in India, but also in the United States and the United Kingdom.
"The potential for gaming is definitely skyrocketing," says Somil, as he shares his exciting journey of how he and his brother turned a big dream into reality.

The potential of Indian animation industry

The success of movies like Hanuman and Bal Ganesha has made production houses realise the potential of the domestic market. The Indian animation industry is moving away from being just a back office for Hollywood studios and other international production houses. It is now creating original content for the local market. With the success of animated movies like Hanuman and Bal Ganesha, production houses and studios are realising the potential of the domestic market. Apart from animated movies, animation series on television with original content have also been garnering huge TRP ratings such as J Bole To Jadu on Nickelodeon, MAD on Pogo among others.The entertainment segment of the Indian animation industry is worth Rs 1,300 crore, says a Ficci-PwC report on the media and entertainment industry. Over the next four years the growth in domestic demand for TV/Broadcast animated content is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.5 per cent. It is forcast the domestic market will be worth Rs 150 crore in 2008 and will touch Rs 300 crore by 2010. The launch of new channels almost everyday and the resultant desire to provide diversified and original content has made media houses look for original and localised content. The Turner Group is one such instance. Cartoon Network and Pogo — the group’s two kids’ channel — are growing at a rate of 25 per cent annually and to keep up the momentum the channel decided to acquire local content, early on. “We started acquiring local animated content in 2001. So far we have acquired 20 properties. When we launched Pogo, we felt there was a void in terms of animated content,” Monica Tata, vice-president, Advertisement Sales and Networks, Indian and South Asia, Turner International India said. The latest acquisition by the group is Chota Bheem— produced by Hyderabad-based Green Gold studios — which will be aired this summer. On the localisation strategy, Tata says: “We started by dubbing the programmes that we had in Hindi. The next level came with the introduction of Tamil and Telegu languages and then we started looking for content that would add value to the channel.” Graphiti is another firm that is bullish on the local market. Rather, it is one of the only firms which has been intent on creating original content. Agrees AK Madhavan, CEO, Crest Animation, who, having created some popular animation work in the international market, is now working on series for domestic market. Madhavan’s company is also focused on creating animated films.

Get Multimedia Animation Jobs

A marketplace for Multimedia Animation jobs and Multimedia Animation professionals. A meeting place. We keep it simple, no bells and whistles, no complex stuff. Just simple job posting and job seeking features. Through sponsor supported advertising we are able to offer this service to the Multimedia Animation community completely free. Yes, FREE. Don’t over think it. There are no catches, no hidden fees. It’s free, it’s simple and it’s effective. So get started now! Employers post your jobs for FREE and search our resume database for FREE by registering here today. Job seekers search jobs all around the world for free and post your resume/cv today. Allow employers from across the globe to find you quickly and easily. Sign up today at GetMultimediaAnimationJobs.com

Shoot-Upload-Share @ Adobe Photoshop Express

You shot it — now do something to it. Make it pop. Make it impossible to ignore. Upload, sort, polish, and store up to 2GB of photos. All for free. Resize, tint, distort, and more — add your mark to all your images. Then show them off on Adobe® Photoshop® Express - Join Now .

Amplify your image
Do what you want with your photos. Give them cartoon colors. Distort them. Go nuts. Turn average photos into jaw droppers with options like Pop Color, Sketch, Hue, Black & White, Tint, and more.

Get free rent
Got thousands of photos buried deep in folders on your computer? Give them a real home, absolutely free, at Photoshop Express. All it takes is a quick registration and you can store, tweak, polish, and show off up to 2GB of photos.

Your gallery or mine?
My Gallery is the place to show off your photos, your creativity, and your individual style. Create your own exhibit and let people play and interact with it. Display your images in 3D or as a grid. The choice is yours. You control how everything looks in your gallery.

Advanced degree not required
Intimidated by lots of buttons, menus, and palettes? Just say whew! At Photoshop Express, turning a quickly snapped camera phone shot into a shareworthy photo is a piece of cake.

Adobe® Photoshop® Express - Join Now

Pritish Nandy in Rs 1800 crore deal for animation movies

Pritish Nandy Communications Ltd (PNC) has struck a Rs 1800 crore ($45 million) deal with DQ Entertainment (DQE), one of the world's leading animation and gaming production companies, to co-develop and co-produce six animation movies over the next three to four years. Announcing the deal Wednesday in DQE's Hyderabad office, PNC chairman Pritish Nandy said that both the companies would later jointly work out the budget of each of these six movies. "The movies will be in animation and live action. Each project will be announced separately and all of them shall be released globally," Nandy told IANS on phone. Last May, PNC had also signed a five-movie deal with Motion Pixel Corporation (MPC), a Florida-based animation company that has its animation studios, Estudio Flex, in Costa Rica. The PNC-MPC deal envisaged that all the five movies would be 3-D animated full-length Bollywood variety of movies with Indian and international actors. Nandy had earlier said that the first of these movies was now in the final stages of production. "DQE is a world leader in the high-end animation and film content space. The range and quality of its work has impressed us. We are delighted to associate with its talented team of 3,000 professionals," said Nandy. PNC is also exploring gaming extensions for all platforms to be co-developed with DQE, including comic book spin-offs. DQE has already collaborated with production houses in other parts of Asia, Europe and North America for 'Long Form Animation' for TV, home video and feature-length movies. Animation content produced at DQE Hyderabad facilities have been used by channels like BBC, Nickelodeon, Discovery, Cartoon Network and Disney.

Media firm to animate story on Taj Mahal

For the first time in India, Chandigarh-based Compact Disc India Ltd (CDIL), an integrated media and entertainment company, will animate a true love story titled Eternal Love in English which will revolve around the Taj Mahal. The company has secured an animation outsourcing contract worth $15.70 million from a Los Angeles-based firm through its arm Mediaone Ventures Ltd for the film which is slated to be released in December 2009. Internationally acclaimed celebrities will be involved in this ambitious film project. The company acquired a Russian mobile gaming company — Mobsoft — for $7 million in April this year and very soon the firm will float a new company in Chandigarh. Recently, Department of Information and Technology, Madhya Pradesh, allotted five acres of industrial land to the company for setting up an animation studio at the IT Park in Bhopal. The estimated investment by the studio is Rs 57.20 crore. It has also entered into an agreement with the Rajasthan State Industrial Corporation Ltd for setting up a studio at Kath Kalwar in Jaipur. The agreement was signed at the recently-conducted Resurgent Rajasthan — Partnership Summit at Jaipur, organised by the Rajasthan government in collaboration with FICCI. The Company is hopeful of achieving a sales turnover of over Rs 103 crore this fiscal year.