Intensive Filmmaking Workshop @ FX School

In this fully hands-on Workshop the participants learn a usable workflow and create a short film working from concept to post using the techniques discussed in class.

The workshop is open to anyone over the age of 16 interested in filmmaking and photography and is especially useful to BMM students.

Workshop Details
Day 1
Hands on Canon7D
Introduction to the Canon 7D DSLR and its capabilities. Learn basic photographic principles and learn how to transfer the shot footage to a computer to edit

DSLR Production
Shoot a short test scene using the 7D to get an understanding of it’s cinematic capabilities. The footage shot under various conditions is reviewed on a Monitor and projected on a screen.

Cinematic Storytelling
The Fundamentals of visual storytelling, story generation and the screenplay. Discussion on how Cinematic Storytelling is different from the Novel and the Theater. Brainstorming ideas for next day’s shoot.

Day 2

Production Workshop
Participants team up as crews to shoot a short film with the 7D. The film is transferred to an editing setup

Production Workshop (cont.)
The crews that have finished their shoot edit it on MacPro based FCP systems with the help of FX School staff.

Review of Films
The edited reels are viewed and reviewed by all the participants and the instructors at FX School.

For more details call 022 42354235, or email us at contactus@fxschool.in

Watch out for Celebrity Guests at this event!!

FX School takes a Detour

Digital Painting Masterclass

FX School of Animation is hosting a Digital Character and Background painting animation master-class on Sunday, 13th December, conducted by renowned artist Dnyaneshwar Jagadale.

This eye-opening master-class specially brought to you by FX School teaches you about the latest digital tools and techniques used by Hollywood and Bollywood artists.

Learn how to use a Pen and Tablet to create digital masterworks on your computer and expand your Creative and Career potential. For further details and registration please contact 4235 4235

FX School goes to Cutting Chai '09

FX School was present at yet another college fest. Cutting Chai '09 at National College Bandra.
Doing what it does best... exciting, engaging and educating audiences on the nuances of Digital Content Creation.
FX was present as Associate Sponsor at the Event.

FX School focuses on Mental Ray

In its efforts at being a ‘deep dive‘ center of learning, Mumbai based FX School, a training institute for CG Animation, VFX, Film, and Photography, is amongst other things, focusing big time on production rendering knowledge, especially on Mental Ray.

This focus of the school has evinced a very positive response and has prompted the school to create and devise a short module that will explore the various nuances and tips and tricks around Mental Ray. The module is scheduled to start on 16th November 2009 and will be preceded by a free webinar
on Mental Ray on November 1 (at noon).

Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, the FX School Management consisting of Abhyudaya Morarka, CB Arun Kumar & Dinanath Gokhale shared, "There are two main production renderers that studios use: Renderman and Mental Ray.

Read the full text of the article here

Student Speak @ FX School

Click on the picture to enlarge...

FX School presents Free Webinar on Maya 2009

Maya 2009 render pass system for Mental Ray

Blending a photorealistic CG output using Mental Ray with a live action plate

Topics covered:

• How to successfully take out passes?

• What passes do I need to create that perfect image?

• How to crack the Maya 2009 render global window!

When?

Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 12 noon (IST).

How?

This free class will be held online. Please register at www.fxschool.in/webinar. You will receive a confirmation e-mail with a link with which you may attend the session. Please sign in 10 minutes in advance on the day of the class.

Who should attend?

3D Artists, Compositors, Production Managers, VFX Supervisors, Instructors, Students of Advanced Lighting.

Pre-qualifications?

Working knowledge of Maya and any compositing software

About FX School:

FX School is a high quality institute conducting intensive training in the fields of CG Animation, Visual Effects, Digital Film-making and Photography. In order to successfully provide a high level of instruction, FX School has full-time faculty with hard production experience that any studio would be proud to have. This is combined with truly state-of-the-art facilities and a uniquely designed curriculum to deliver a high impact learning experience.

About the instructor: Bibek Basu

Bibek was most recently heading the Department of Lighting at Pixion Studios.

He also has worked in many CG studios from Jadoo Works to TataElxsi in various roles and capacities. He has worked on projects on both the national and international level which include clients like Disney, Warner, Mike Young Productions, etc.

He has worked on VFX on films like Dhoom 2, Tara Rum Pum, and Tare Zameen Par, amongst others. In addition, numerous commercials have been the benefciary of his talent among which Boomerman and Reebok deserve special mention.

A true believer of “the complete artist” he is working towards shader writing and is also known to be one of the most knowledgeable artists on Mental Ray in India. Bibek has earned the reputation as one of best problem solvers in production.

About our full course Matching Live Action with CG using Mental Ray:

A 5 week part time project based approach to blending a photorealistic CG output using Mental Ray with a live action plate.

Why?

The most challenging of all CG work is to blend a Computer Generated output onto a live background. Most of the work in the Visual Effects industry is centered around this.

This is one of the key areas which remain unaddressed by most instructors. Furthermore, international instructors and online courses are unable to successfully address the singularly unique issues faced by Indian studios.

The use of Mental Ray in India has mostly been "push button." We try to go into the depths of it so you can also solve problems.

Visit www.fxschool.in/webinar to register and we'll send you the link

FX School Outdoor Campaign

Watch out for The FX School Outdoor Campaign! Ver 2.0
Watch out for FX School...
Watch OUT!

Weekend Counseling session with Education Times

Animation, gaming jobs set to double by 2012: Nasscom

28 Sep 2009, 0019 hrs IST, Sutanuka Ghosal, ET Bureau

KOLKATA: The animation industry is likely to have the going good in respect of jobs. Nasscom’s projections suggest that employment in this sector
will double from 14,700 now to 29,500 by 2012. Similarly, the gaming industry too will create a huge number of jobs in the next three years, with the projections being 10,700 jobs by 2012 from a meagre 2,300 people now.

Responding to a ET questionnaire over phone from Delhi, Sangeeta Gupta, vice-president of Nasscom said: “The animation and gaming industry in India has immense scope to grow. Given the financial meltdown, many western countries are actively looking at destinations like India to develop animation content within moderate budgets. The increased interest of Bollywood and the regional cinema industry for animation, has boosted growth also. The Indian animation industry has moved from a pure offshore model to co-production model. While the domestic sector contributed with manpower and infrastructure, international producers helped with marketing and distribution.”

Ms Gupta said that according to Nasscom therefore, animation and gaming companies will witness a significant growth by 2012. “At present, there are some 250 animation companies in the country. By 2012, we expect the number of such companies to swell to around 400. The number of gaming companies will also double from around 50 now to 100 by 2012.”

The Nasscom vice-president estimated that the turnover in the animation sector could cross $1 billion by 2012 from $492 million in 2008. Similarly, turnover in the gaming industry stood at $167 million in 2008, but is likely to go up to $830 million by 2012.

Ms Gupta said Nasscom was keen to provide quality training to those, who want to pursue a career in animation. It has already approached the IT ministry for setting up a formal accreditation board for the animation industry.

“The board will come up with a curriculum, which will be taught by all animation training institutes. We feel that there is an immediate need to standardise the courses that existing institutes offer,” the Nasscom vice-president said.

FX School gets vote of support from FutureWorks

Working together to create high quality production ready talent.

FX School, a high quality training institute that offers courses in Visual Effects, Animation, Film & Television, and Photography has partnered with FutureWorks, a high quality studio in India that does post-production work for domestic and international films.
The relation between FutureWorks and FX School is a symbiotic one where FutureWorks will help FX School facilitate a learning experience for its students that is grounded in reality. In return, FutureWorks will be rewarded with high quality students equipped to face the challenges of a real production environment.

FutureWorks will be supporting students by organizing:

1. Student visits to FutureWorks to gain exposure and understanding to a production pipeline and workflow
2. Internship and pre-internship opportunities in their studios as well as on live shoots
3. Active interaction via guest lectures and recruitment from FX School


“Such students who get exposure to real world production scenarios and challenges while they are undergoing training will be uniquely equipped to hit the ground running when they leave the institute and join a studio,” said C B ArunKumar, Academic Director of FX School.
Over time, most studios have become very skeptical of the quality of students that most training institutes produce, and have thus slowly withdrawn themselves from active participation with almost all training facilities. However, on this exceptional advancement Mr. Abhyudaya Morarka, Director, FX School said, “FutureWorks has shown tremendous faith in our efforts. This is proof that we will do justice to not only our students, but the industry at large. I feel vindicated from those who said that a high quality education could not be imparted in a training institute environment.”

Mr. Gaurav Gupta of FutureWorks shares his views with Mr. Abhyudaya Morarka of FX School with regard to the challenges faced by studios in the media industry in finding and recruiting quality talent and commented, “Now my senior managers cannot complain on the lack of availability of adequately skilled talent." He added “There is so much business to be had, if only we had the people to execute those jobs.”

FX School is equipped with world class infrastructure and is the first school in India to have a production-ready environment including a state-of-the-art chroma studio, fully-equipped practice labs and art rooms. FX School offers an inspirational learning environment complete with a café-lounge and personalized continuous career counseling that helps ensure students stay on track for a successful career. Accomplished and experienced professionals help the student master his or her skills in his or her chosen disciplines. A distinguished Board of Excellence - comprising of the senior-most industry acclaimed professionals and experts, including Shelley Page from DreamWorks Animation, Suresh Seetharaman from Liquid Comics, and others from top studios such as Pixion and EyeQube - keep the programmes at the cutting edge of the field. As a result, students graduate as polished, industry-ready professionals poised to deliver hard results from day one!

FX School also offers continuing education courses and workshops for professionals in the field wanting to brush up their skills.

For additional information and course details visit www.fxschool.in

CB Arunkumar chats online on Times Ascent

Transcript of the live chat conducted with CB Arunkumar, Academic Director, FX School on Times Ascent Online.

read the full transcript here

FX School Scholarship Drive - A Resounding Success!!

The FX School Scholarship Drive conducted on the 12th and 13th of September 2009 met with an excellent response. Lots of students earned upto a 100% scholarship on our top of the line courses in Visual Effects, Photography, Animation, Digital Filmmaking and Broadcast Television.

FX School embarked on this endeavour with the sole purpose of democratising high end education, and making it more accessible to the talented students out there. The drive threw up the cream of the crowd, and pleasantly surprised even the highly accomplished faculty with the artistic calibre of students.

By popular demand, the dates have been extended till the 25th of September 2009, so if you want to earn that scholarship, please do call us at 022 - 42354235, or drop us a line at scholarships@fxschool.in

..or just Visit the FX School Website

On 6th august FX school conducted a one day workshop on pixellation which was attended by students of Lala Lajpat Rai College. The 22 students were divided in four groups and each of the groups made a movie for about 1-2 minutes. The students were provided with the cameras and at the start of the workshop they were given instructions on how to go about making a stop-motion movie. After that the students got to work on their own and at the end of the workshop made a movie.

Creativity at its best

Animation is where imagination meets reality, where creativity brings life to lifeless images. Take a sneak peek into the life of Bibek Basu, CG Technical Director, FX School as he tells us more here

Lady Chatterjee and CB Arun Kumar

Lady Chatterjee is an item girl with a difference – she’s totally virtual! Developed by animator C. B. Arun Kumar and music label Saregama, she has been brought to life using NVIDIA Quadro workstation technology. Not only does ‘Lady C’ hold her own against fellow glamour girls on the big screen, she’s India’s first video tone item girl. Mobile users can download her music video to their phones so that Lady C appears every time they receive a call.

Read More about Lady Chatterjee here

Interview with FX School Founders Abhyudaya Morarka & C.B Arun Kumar

"We wanted to create a center that was as close to a working environment as possible of a very high caliber, like a high end studio. Today when Indian students pass out they are no longer going into some shop in a corner, they actually go to work in big companies and these companies bring with them a certain professional ethic, we felt that an educational institute should instill a professional ethic from the very beginning."
for more on this article, click here

FX School @ Polaris 0IX

FX School spent an exciting weekend at the Wilson College BMM Festival - Polaris 0ix...

FX was the category sponsor for all Film, Photography and Fine Arts events. There was even a scholarship drive held at the event, where a number of bright sparks were identified and offered scholarships for our courses.

And then, of course there was Polly, the Polaris mascot, who did the rounds of the Wilson Campus armed with loads of FX School goodies.

When The Leaves Came Out Again

The now infamous butterflies from the FX School made an appearance at the Times Education Forum this weekend... here they come again, setting peoples' hearts aflutter.

Stop! Motion

"STOP MOTION" is a technique that involves shooting Living beings (human beings, animals etc) in action frame by frame using a still camera...

Some brilliant examples...





To learn more about Stop Motion Filmmaking, attend The FX School Workshop on Stop Motion Animation and Fimmaking.

This Thursday (25th June) from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.
call 022 42354235 to register.

See you there!

Pixillation workshop -- Storytelling via Digital Photography

Take a sneak peek into the exciting new world of Digital Media in a one-day Pixillation workshop -- Storytelling via Digital Photography -- organised by FX School on Thursday, June 18 at 10 am at its Andheri institute. No prior experience is required to enjoy this workshop; just the will to explore your creativity.

The workshop will provide an opportunity to brainstorm, ideate, create, and tell your story via Digital Photography and photo-manipulation techniques in just 8 hours of hands on training at FX School’s state-of-the-art studio grade institute. The workshop will include training on various aspects of Digital Photography and photo manipulation right from conceptualizing, shooting, manipulating, and displaying their story. The participants will be guided by leading experts from the industry.

Participation charges are Rs 500/- only, and includes all materials and snacks. For further details please contact FX School on 4235 4235 or contactus@fxschool.in.

Workshop @ FX School

On Wednesday 3 june 2009, FX School held a one day film making workshop. There were 21 participants from all walks of life - from college students to professionals from various fields - (we even had an Army Veteran among the ranks!!). The workshop kicked off at 10 in the morning and after a brief introduction all the participants were divided into groups. As soon as the groups were divided and Christened, our academic director CB Arunkumar handed out special FX school currency.

As soon as the groups came up with themes and story lines for their respective films, they put their plan into action with the help of our faculty who had to be paid per hour for their services. (this was to factoring budgeting into the filmmaking process)


While most of the movies featured the participants themselves there were a few that had volunteers from our institute and it came to light that our Managing - Director Abhyudaya Morarka is indeed quite a skilled actor.






The workshop continued until late evening and finally at the end of the day the movies were screened at our projector room and after that all the participants were given certificates for their participation by our Abhyudaya (or Abhyu, as he is popularly known)






The faculty was amazed at the hidden talent in the participants, as the films they ended up making were far superior to expectations.











The films will be uploaded here shortly, so WATCH THIS SPACE!!

FX School on the Radio

Watch out for the FX School Radio Spot on BIG FM 92.7

FX School on AnimationXpress

CB ArunKumar, Academic Director speaks on AnimationXpress.com.


Teaching Digital Content Creation in a brave new way
"Every once in a while something revolutionary happens to the way in which we do things. Usually such changes cause unexpected fallouts in areas where experts generally think they already have the last word. In the media and entertainment Industry, the digital revolution of the last decade or so has been the cause of much upheaval in the established methods of doing things."
Read the full article here...

Of Leaves and Butterflies

A lot of people are curious about the leaves that were found fluttering about the expo. The rationale behind it, and what they were doing there.
Well, we here at FX School believe that we are the proverbial tree of knowledge, with our esteemed High Council forming the roots, the Academic Council being the trunk, faculty being the branches, and students being the leaves (and the fruits) of all the labour combined. It is these leaves who will eventually drop off into the world, and flourish on their own...

The FX School turned out with all its strength at the CGTE '09, Doing what it loves best... mingling with students and professionals and generally having a ball. What better place to meet industry friends, old and new than at CGTE.
How we love our Expo's!!

FXSchool@CGTE '09

VISIT US @ STALL NO E7 & E8 AT CGTANTRA EXPO 09, at The Residence Convention Centre, Powai, Mumbai

23rd & 24th May 2009

Come witness all the fun and meet our esteemed faculty (and the leaves that fell off the FXSchool Tree)

See you there!

Liquid Comics at FX School Art Gallery

Now Showing at the FX School Art gallery:

Liquid Comics Artwork based on Shekhar Kapur's Ramayan 3392, Devi and the Shakti Series is prominently on display at the FX School Art Gallery.

Liquid Comics sprang from the ashes of Virgin Comics, a shuttered enterprise from Richard Branson and the Chopra family that was meant to hammer the dense narratives of India and Asia into graphic novels for the American mainstream and beyond...

Suresh Seetharaman, one of the co-founders of Liquid Comics LLC is on the High Council at FXSchool.

FX School Walk Around

Liquid Comics artwork at fx school in Mumbai

Schools' In

This is a test post for the FX School blog. Watch this space on the latest on the goings on at FX School, India's most advanced Institute for Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Filmmaking. Keep a track of our events, accomplishments and general hulaballo that we are sure to create nce the show hits the road!

Welcome to FX School. Follow us and join us as we Go Beyond...