Hasta La Motion!

Tum Bin 2, Raaz Reboot, Phobia, Sanam Re, Hate Story 3, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Mary Kom, Fan. All these films have one common element in them and it’s the fact that some or the other part of these movies have been worked upon by the Mumbai based Pixel Digital Studios.

Pixel D started out from a small gala in Laxmi and now has a huge 10,000 sq ft facility at Nimbus, Andheri. Over these couple of years Pixel has seen a gradual growth because they have worked consistently on quality. The studio hired such technicians who are best at their work and their work is synonym of quality.

The studio isn’t rigid to what knowledge they have. Innovations, experiments, client directions along with their requirements are fulfilled. The VFX team has recently delivered around 1,700 shots for Deven Bhojani’s Commando 2 with just 30 people on board for the project in two months. The creative head of Pixel D Studios – K V Sanjit says, “For Commando 2, the total numbers of shots were huge for the limited time. There’s one hi-tec touch screen sequence which required lot of creative improvisation. The producer of the movie – Vipul Amrutlal Shah and director – Deven Bhojani had an eye on every single detail. The VFX shots quality check happened in our in-house DI suite frame by frame. It was a great time working on the project and our team has managed it well.”

Currently, he is working on S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2. Sanjit comes with a 10 year experience at Prasad EFX and has worked on various projects like Mr.X, Satyagraha, Madras Cafe, Raaz 3D, Haunted 3D, Fukrey, Creature 3D. He’s been heading Pixel Digital Studios as VFX creative head for the past two years.

DI colourist, Jayadev Tiruveaipati adds, “Commando 2 was well shot and I had a great time working on this film. Having said that, it was a bit challenging to grade the film as it was short with multiple cameras as there were a lot of action sequences and chases which had to be covered from all the angles.”

A veteran in the industry, Jayadev Tiruveaipati (fondly called as JD) comments, “Pixel Digital Studios is at par with any other studio in today’s date and it has a positive vibe, which was one of my key reasons for joining Pixel. We have the latest tech, we have a strong technical team which has collectively more than 50 years of experience in this field.”

JD has previously worked on a challenging movie called ‘Frozen’ back in 2007. The film was short in colour and the challenge was to make it black and white in the grading suite. (It might be the first film in the digital intermediate era to be transformed from colour to black and white.)

Talking about Pixel D’s vision, director, Ankur Sachdev states, “Our vision is to be our clients ‘first call’ and preferred collaboration partner with companies within our business areas. We also seem to consistently exceed our client’s expectations for professional and value adding advice. Our objective is long-standing and trustful client relationships created via excellent advice and services.”

From left: JD, Santy, Prakash, Sanjit

So what makes Pixel D unique? “Well this recipe is a secret but yes we have delivered with flying results and also have been catering to the top industry so I would say try us there is no harm, you will get superb results with good cost. Yes, we save our client costs too and also direct them in further releasing their films to certain departments,” claims Sachdev.

As for the business model, Pixel D has studios coming in and partnering with them as it’s better for both and reduces their risk factor. MB Studios is what it started from and now seeing the quick results, they are sated. As for clients, it’s industry to industry. “We follow ItoI model, we have regional clients coming in we have Bollywood coming in we have commercials we have international work as well so we restrict our team to their industry,” adds Sachdev.

It’s been about three years since the inception of Pixel D. One thing the team has learnt is that: ‘Never ever over commit. Whatever you can deliver just commit that.’

The studio is fully equipped with latest instruments which technicians need to execute the work in quality and precision. “We have Baselight, latest Resolve set-up, NUKE software and a proper pipeline for visual effects. We also have FLAME,” mentions studio head, Sharvari Watak.

“We are proud to have JD, Santy, Prakash, Sanjit on board with us to deliver with precision. We also have DCP making Cube server. Hence a project is completely packaged with us till it hits the theatres,” says Watak.

Colourist Santosh Pawar (aka Santy) is currently working on a Marathi movie ‘Sarvanaam’ which is basically a festival film. With zero light, DOP Krishna Soren has shot this film in an incredible manner. The movie is directed by Girish Mohite. Santy has also worked on numerous Punjabi films which have excelled at the box office.

Another senior colourist, Prakash Nikharge, who has worked on movies like Ishiqya, Ded Ishqiya, Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mann Dola, Kahaani, Katyar Kaljit Ghusli is part of the core Pixel D team. “As I have started in this industry around 18 years back, I was lucky to see the great leap the industry has taken which is from reel to hard drive. The industry is heading towards a digital revolution. The tools and techniques available nowadays are simply great,” observes Nikharge.

“Choosing Pixel D was the wisest decision I think I have taken as I am getting to work on both the available digital grading tools namely Da Vinci Resolve and Baselight,” states Nikharge.

In the next five years, the studio plans to “cater to the industry under one roof. We had started with VFX then expanded to a bigger team then DI Baselight, Preview theatres, Deliverables department and now shortly coming up with few more assistance to the technicians of the industry. We want to be biggest in the industry for VFX and we’ll soon enter global markets,” concludes Sachdev.

Having laid a strong foundation whose pillars are the stalwarts of the industry, Pixel Digital Studios has managed to bag some good projects under its name. We would certainly like to see what more it has to offer to the industry in the coming years.

The post With industry veterans at its core, Pixel Digital Studios plans to provide end-to-end post-production services appeared first on AnimationXpress.