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"The
Hyderabad facility will immediately start work on all the
various high end disciplines like modeling, matchmoving, animation,
lighting and compositing on our Hollywood feature films"
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Excerpts
from a conversation with R&H India Director Saraswathi Balgam:
What
is the current spate of projects that R&H India is working on?
Rhythm & Hues is currently working as the lead Animation and
VFX facility on "The Golden Compass" which is the
first movie in Newline Cinema's next big trilogy based on "His
Dark Materials" books by Philip Pullman. We are also the
lead facility on "Alvin & the Chipmunks" for
Fox, "The Incredible Hulk" for Marvel, "The
Mummy 3" for Universal Studios, and "The Kingdom"
which is also for Universal.
With so many Movies on the floors, what are your expansion plans?
For the current movies that we have already signed, we have ample
capacity between our facilities in Los Angeles and Mumbai to ensure
that we can deliver at the highest quality standards that we are
known for. However, looking at a longer term strategy for Rhythm
& Hues, we have decided that we need to continue our gradual
expansion in India to address some of our future plans for the next
few years. Given the strategy to continue expansion in India, we
decided that we should open a second facility in Hyderabad, rather
than continue the growth just in our Mumbai facility.
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Images
of the new IT Park campus in Hyderabad
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Could
you elaborate on the strategy behind the Hyderabad Facility?
Over the past 5 years, R&H has gradually grown our production
facility in Mumbai, and today we have peaked at around 200 employees
who help out in key roles on most of our feature productions. During
this same period, R&H has been very fortunate to see our overall
business grow dramatically resulting in us adding another 400 employees
to our existing staff of 300 in Los Angeles. Despite this growth
between the two facilities, we have not able to keep pace with the
increased demand for our services and there is constant pressure
to continue expansion but at the same time not compromise on the
quality of our work nor the quality of our work environment. After
much discussion about the pros and cons, we have decided the best
strategy for us moving forward would be to open a second facility
in India in the city of Hyderabad. We zeroed in on Hyderabad based
on several reasons like availability of good quality infrastructure,
and lower cost of living. However, the primary reason for setting
up a second facility in Hyderabad rather than the option of just
growing in Mumbai was to provide our current and future employees
with a real choice.
There
are many talented artists and employees that we have been talking
to (both internally and externally) that have expressed a strong
desire to work at Rhythm & Hues, however for several of them
it has been very difficult to consider living in a city like Mumbai
which has a very high cost of living, long and difficult commutes,
and a crumbling infrastructure. Furthermore, the pressures of starting
a family in Mumbai is high as well as the notion of owning a house
in Mumbai has become virtually impossible for most. For others though,
despite all these difficulties, Mumbai holds a special charm and
a truly cosmopolitan lifestyle and there is no other city they would
rather live in. Therefore, to cater to the needs of both these diverse
groups, we decided to open a second facility in Hyderabad while
still promoting our facility in Mumbai.
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Images
of the new IT Park campus in Hyderabad
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Would
the R&H India production pipeline seamlessly extend between
the facilities in Mumbai and Hyderabad, or will they work on different
projects?
The Hyderabad facility will be operating in the same manner as our
Mumbai facility. Today the Mumbai facility is completely and seamlessly
integrated with the Los Angeles facility in terms of not only networks
and systems infrastructure, but also production workflow and artist
departments. The facility in Hyderabad will be an extension of this
same model, with the same infrastructure, same workflow, and the
same productions. Furthermore, the Hyderabad facility will immediately
start work on all the various high end disciplines like modeling,
matchmoving, animation, lighting and compositing on our Hollywood
feature films, and will not be relegated to just entry level or
labor intensive tasks. We want to grow the Hyderabad facility to
be fully self sufficient much along the same lines as the current
Mumbai facility.
When
does the Hyderabad facility begin operations?
Currently the building we have chosen is still under construction,
but we hope to be operational by early November 2007.
Where
is it located?
We
have leased a little over 25,000 sq. ft. in a beautiful new building
that is part of "The V" IT park run by Ascendas. The V
is one of the premiere IT parks located in the heart of HiTec City
in Madhapur, Hyderabad and it is designed as a sprawling campus
that has amazing facilities to cater to both the technical as well
as the creative needs of our employees. We are very excited to have
found this ideal premises for our new studio.
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Images
of the new IT Park campus in Hyderabad
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Additional
Comments?
The decision to open a facility in Hyderabad starts a new chapter
in the 20 year history of Rhythm & Hues. We carefully thought
through this decision and had multiple rounds of discussion before
we determined that it was truly in line with our long term strategy
and the values of our company. We believe that starting a facility
in Hyderabad will help Rhythm & Hues to continue attracting
and retaining the top talent in India which has allowed us to deliver
the highest quality of work. At the same time, this decision will
also enable us to provide our employees with a great work environment
and a high quality of life.
-
Anand Gurnani
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