Visual Effects is not an easy subject to teach. With the global visual effects industry going through turmoil, it is important for a visual effects instructor to focus on essential and fundamental skills that are absolutely essential if a student wishes to climb up the ladder to become a successful artist in his career.

1. VISUAL FX : TEACHING
THE IMPOSSIBLE

2. “WHEN YOU'RE IN SOMETHING AS SUCCESSFUL AS
'TRANSFORMERS,' YOU CAN'T USE IT AS A SALES PIECE FOR YOUR
ABILITY AS AN ACTRESS BECAUSE IT'S ALL ABOUT
VISUAL EFFECTS.”
MEGAN FOX

3. SACHIN BHATNAGAR
EDUCATOR | CODER
& VP – NEW MEDIA @ FRAMEBOXX

4. State of the
Industry
The Teaching
Dilemma

5. STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
AND THE ROAD AHEAD

7. LIST OF STUDIOS THAT HAVE SHUT DOWN OVER THE PAST 5 YEARS
• Rhythm & Hues
• Digital Domain
• ICO VFX
• CIS – Hollywood
• Kerner Optical
• Asylum VFX
• Café FX
• C.O.R.E Digital Pictures
• Pacific Title & Art Studio
• The Orphanage

8. Every Cloud has a silver lining !!!!!!

9. INTERNATIONAL MARKET TRENDS | MICRO & SMALL STUDIOS
• The demise of corporations has given opportunity to micro studios.
• A micro studio consists of a small but talented workforce.
• Instead of offloading visual effects work to a single large entity, the work is
divided between multiple such studios.
• Work happens faster due to competition.
• It costs much less this way…

10. INTERNATIONAL MARKET TRENDS | OUTSOURCING
• Despite protests, work will travel to Asia
• The cost of doing visual effects work, atleast a major part of it in the west is
amazingly high
• Countries like India have a huge English speaking population
• We’re economical
• Due to time zone differences, Asia works when the US sleeps = 24 hour work
cycle

11. DOMESTIC MARKET TRENDS | CONSOLIDATE & GROW
• A lot of major production houses have shut shop in recent years. These
include such names as Crest Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks.
• Consolidation is slowly pulling the industry out of recession.
• Consolidation ensures only the fittest survive.
• Consolidation ensures that the industry does not die.

12. DOMESTIC MARKET TRENDS | THE BIG PLAYERS
• India has done what no other country could – Create Humongous World
Class Companies such as Prime Focus.
• Prime Focus is now the largest Media & Entertainment group in the world.
• Reliance & Prime Focus merged their film business recently.
• They have acquired several key studios in the world including Double
Negative and are located in over 6 locations worldwide.

13. DOMESTIC MARKET TRENDS | CONTENT EXPLOSION
• Indian films are continually raising the bar as far as domestic visual effects consumption goes.
• Experimentation in genres such as Science Fiction & Mythology may be elementary but it does
push the demand for better visual effects.
• The Television Advertising Industry is way ahead when it comes to world class visual effects. This
in itself is a huge contributor to the growth of the visual effects industry in India.
• Television shows such as mythology serials have matured in terms of their FX execution
standards.
• The industry down south is far more expressive when it comes to Visual Effects.

14. KEY TAKEAWAYS
• The global visual effects industry is gradually correcting itself.
• Market dynamics have changed drastically, business models are evolving.
• The West cannot forgo outsourcing. Its just not viable for them.
• Outsourced work = Advantage Asia, particularly India.
• Consolidation has sized down the industry but scaled up the quality and seriousness.
• There ARE Jobs in this industry !
• The quality benchmarks for a candidate has gone up.
• The Government recently asked Doordarshan to start a Kids Animation Channel and
promote Indian Animation IPs. This is a major step forward.
• Indian Films and TVCs are continually raising the visual effects quality bar.

15. Bottomline
The global visual effects industry has gone
through flux, has been beaten, bashed up
but like a phoenix, it is slowly rising back
from the ashes.

16. THE SKILLS DILEMMA
ESSENTIAL SKILLS

17. Students lack the most fundamental skills !!

18. They are hell bent on Software & Tutorials !

19. Historical Facts
& Knowledge
Camera &
Cinematography
Fundamentals
Image & File
Format
Fundamentals
Color
Fundamentals
Compositing
Essentials
Students Need to Work on

20. HISTORICAL FACTS & KNOWLEDGE
• Students must absolutely know about the history of special / visual effects.
• Distinction between Special Effects & Visual Effects
• The role of pioneers like the Lumière Brothers, Georges Méliès, Ray Harryhausen, John
Dykstra and more.
• Students should read about companies such as Robert Abel & Associates, Industrial Light
& Magic, Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues etc.
• Promote the role of research and reading amongst students.

21. CAMERA & CINEMATOGRAPHY FUNDAMENTALS
• Evolution of Cameras
• Types of Cameras | From Handcranked Film Cameras to Digital Cine Cameras
• Lenses : Distortion, Aperture, Chromatic Aberration
• Frame Rate
• Shutter Speed – Motion Blur
• ISO and Noise / Grain
• Time Lapse Photography

22. IMAGE & FILE FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS
• Pixel Aspect Ratio
• Frame Sizes
• Compression and Codecs
• Logarithmic File Formats such as CINEON & DPX
• OpenEXR | Critically Important
• Camera RAW Formats
• High Dynamic Range Images (HDRI)

23. COLOR FUNDAMENTALS
• Bit Depth
• Integer vs Float Interpolation
• Understanding Brightness, Gain, Gamma mathematically
• Normalization
• Understanding Lookup Tables
• Visualizing Colors in 3D Space

24. COMPOSITING FUNDAMENTALS
• Porter & Duff’s Equation | (FG * FGa) + (BG * (1-FGa))
• Understanding Mattes
• Camera Projection Mapping
• Using OpenEXR
• Using Layers & Channels from 3D
• Color Correction
• Pre-Multiplication | Pre-Div/Post-Multiply

25. Thank You
mailme@sachinbhatnagar.com | @sachinbee