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George Lucas-founded ILM comes to Mumbai, starts talent hunt for 400
This will be the sixth such studio for the San Francisco-headquartered ILM after Singapore, Vancouver, London and Sydney in its global expansion of operations.
Mumbai: One of the world’s biggest visual effects studios – Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), founded by George Lucas in 1975 – is setting up shop in Mumbai. The ILM team is scouting for office space between Andheri and Goregaon, the city’s western suburbs, to start its full-fledged operations.
The Mumbai studio will be led by Kiran Prasad, who has started recruiting VFX talent -- the company will hire a staff of 400. This will be the sixth such studio for the San Francisco-headquartered ILM after Singapore, Vancouver, London and Sydney in its global expansion of operations.
ILM’s footprint in India is indicative of how the Indian talent pool of artistic and technically skilled visual effects professionals has grown and matured, said Prasad. “The gaming and OTT platforms received a huge boost during the lockdown period and demand for good content has grown exponentially. The government has also acknowledged the growing talent pool and unveiled a draft policy to support our industry,” she said.
ILM’s arrival in Mumbai comes on the back of the Narendra Modi government unveiling a draft policy last year to boost the Animation, VFX, Gaming, Comics and Extended-Reality (AVGC-XR) sector.
“The Mumbai studio will be like any of the other ILM studios globally – a normal corporate office. It will contribute to the VFX work done globally by the company,” said Prasad, who was formerly the head of Double Negative studios in Bengaluru and Chennai. The studio is likely to work on projects from Hollywood including live-action and animated feature films, television and streaming content.
When asked why ILM picked Mumbai over other cities such as Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, Prasad said, “We decided to come to Mumbai because 60 to 70 per cent of the talent is here. The skillsets we need are available and of course this is the city of the stars.”
Commenting on the development, Biju D, a senior VFX supervisor who has seen the industry grow from its nascent stage and has worked on some of the top grossers of Bollywood, such as Raju Hirani’s ‘PK’ and ‘Three Idiots’, said, “Our country has got talent. But the cream is attracted by more established industries like software engineering. It would take a little more time for the talent to recognise animation and VFX industry as a potential career path. Once we break that perception, the Indian VFX technicians can take on the world. Over the last 10 years, the Indian talent pool has grown and ILM’s arrival in Mumbai will certainly boost the sector and help enhance the skillsets further.”
Earlier, Indian families would enrol their children for software engineering courses, but animation and VFX was looked down upon. In the US, the VFX industry is treated with great respect. Over last 10 years, the Indian talent pool has grown and ILM’s arrival in Mumbai will certainly boost the sector and help enhance skillsets further.”
ILM has created visuals effects for over 350 feature films and boasts of 15 academy awards. Within two years of its birth, the studios won the best visual effects awards for ‘Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope’ in 1977. Thereafter, ILM dominated the annual Oscar race for many years – ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981), ‘Poltergeist’ (1981), ‘ET – The Extra Terrestrial’ (1982), ‘Return of the Jedi’ (1983), ‘Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom’ (1984), ‘Cocoon’ (1985), ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ (1987), ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit’ (1989), to name a few.
Its more contemporary endeavours have been the Harry Potter films.
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