The Indian Cinema era began

The history of Indian Cinema goes back to the nineteenth century. In 1896, the very first films shot by the Lumiere Brothers were shown in Bombay (Present - Mumbai), But history was actually created when Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar popularly known as Save Dada, the still photographer, was so much influenced by the Lumiere Brothers’ production that he ordered a camera from England. His first film was shot at the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai, known as ‘The Wrestlers’. It was a simple recording of a wrestling match which was screened in 1899 and is considered as the first motion picture in the Indian Film Industry.

In 1897, a European exhibitor first screened a selection of silent short films at the Victoria Public Hall in Madras. In Madras (Present- Chennai), The Electric Theatre was established for the screening of silent films. It was a favorite haunt of the British community in Madras. The theatre was shut down after a few years. This building is now part of the Post Office, Mr.Cohen built a Lyric Theatre in Anna Salai. This venue boasted a variety of events, including plays in English, Western classical music concerts and ballroom dances. Silent films were also screened as an additional attraction. The first cinema theater in India was Elphinstone Palace (Calcutta).

Mr.Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke (Marathi) (30 April 1870 - 16 February 1944) was an Indian Producer, Director and Screenwriter known as the father of Indian cinema. Starting with his debut film, Raja Harishchandra in 1913, now known as India's first full-length feature, he made 95 movies and 26 short films in his career spanning 19 years, till 1937, including his most noted works: Mohini Bhasmasur (1913), Satyavan Savitri (1914), Lanka Dahan (1917), Shri Krishna Janma (1918) and Kaliya Mardan (1919).The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honour by the Government of India in 1969. The award is one of the most prestigious awards in Indian cinema. A postage stamp, bearing his face, was released by India Post to honour him in 1971. A variant, honorary Award from The Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Mumbai was Introduced in the year 2001, for lifetime achievement in Indian cinema.

Mr.R.Nataraja Mudaliar an automobile spare parts merchant promoted India Film Company Limited in 1916 and built a silent film studio on Miller’s Road, Purasawalkkam, Madras. Interested in the new medium of cinema he had received training in Cinematography from Stewart Smith, a British cinematographer. Mudaliar’s first silent feature film was "Keechaka Vadam" (1917), so he was the first producer, director and cinematographer in Tamil Cinema and Tamil Nadu.

The first Hindi / Urdu talkie picture ‘Alam Ara’ was created by Ardeshir Irani and screened in Bombay in 1931. It was the first talking (sound) picture in India. The release of Alam Ara started a new era in Indian Cinema. Phiroz Shah was the first music director of Alam Ara. The first song which was recorded for Alam Ara in 1931 was ‘De de khuda ke naam par’. It was sung by W.M. Khan. The first talking picture in tamil was "Kalidas" made in 1931 in Bombay, Indian mythological the first sound film ever to be made in South India. Produced by Ardeshir Irani and directed by H.M. Reddi, this film had T.P. Rajalakshmi as heroine. Even though this film is considered as the first Tamil talkie, it is not a hundred percent Tamil film, Rajalakshmi spoke and sang in Tamil, while the hero did in Telugu. Some others in Hindi. "Kalidas" is therefore the first Indian multi-lingual film!

Mr.Samikannu Vincent of Coimbatore in 1935, want to make Tamil language movies. But he was an employee of the South Indian Railways in Trichy, purchased a film projector and silent films from the Frenchman Du Pont and set up a business as film exhibitor. He erected tents for screening films. His tent cinema became popular and he travelled all over the state with his mobile unit. In later years, he produced talkies and also built a cinema in Coimbatore.

Film chambers of India:

The Central Board of Film certification is under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and functions as a regulatory body. Its certificate is mandatory for public exhibition of films. It is tasked with "regulating the public exhibition of films under the provisions of the Cinematograph Act 1952". This Act was passed and came into effect only in 1920 from Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Lahore (now in Pakistan) and Rangoon (now Yangon in Burma). The Central Board has its office at Mumbai but has regional offices at Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Cuttack, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolcutta, New Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram.

The Film and Television Institute of India was established in 1960 at pune by the Government of India with the object of imparting technical training in the art and craft of film-making and it provides in-service training to employees of Doordarshan. On October 1, 1974 the institue became a society registered under the Registration of societies Act of 1860. The film wing offers courses leading to Diploma in Cinema with specialization in areas like direction, cinematography, editing, sound recording and sound engineering. Student films are entered in various national and international film festivals.

National Film Archive of India (NFAI) is a pioneer institution set up in 1964 at pune with the objective of acquisition and preservation of national cinema, film classification, documentation and research encouraging film technology and spread of film culture in the country. The Archive's 'Film Circle' programme exposes interested local audiences to the best films form India and abroad. It conducts short courses in film appreciation. The collection of more than 12,000 films from all over the world. NFAI has regional offices at Kolcutta, Bangalore and thiruvanthapuram.

National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) was set up in 1980 to promote the production of good cinema. The Film Finance Corporation (FFC) was merged with the Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC). This corporation aims to make the quality of indian cinema. It encourages low-budget films of high quality. It lauched its programme of foreign co-productions with the film Gandhi. Then came Salaam bombay, Unni, Miss Beauty's Children and the financing of Maya Memsaheb all films that have been acclaimed. The corporation imports foreign films and exports Indian films.

Directorate of Film Festivals under the Ministry of information and broadcasting, has the task of organizing International Film Festivals in India every year. It also arranges for the selection and entry of Indian films at film festivals held in other countries. The directorate organizes the National Film Awards annually. The National Awards for films, which were started as an annual incentive by the Government of India, for the making of artistic, competent and meaningful films.

The Films Division of India was established in 1948 to articulate the energy of a newly independent nation. For more than six decades, the organization has relentlessly striven to maintain a record of the social, political and cultural imaginations with realities of the country on film. Cartoon and educational films are also brought out by the Films Division for various Ministries and Departments of Government. These films are distributed to Doordarshan and theatrical circuits. They are also screened on television networks and embassies abroad. In its archives, the Films Division of India holds more than 8000 titles on animation, documentaries and short films.

National Centre of Films for Children and Young People (N'CYP) was earlier known as Children Film Society (CFS) which had been established in 1955 to provide 'value based' entertainment to children through the medium of films. Its scope having been enlarged to include 'young people', the CFS became the N'CYP produces, acquires, distributes and exhibits children's film. It also conducts biennial 'International Festivals' of children films.

“CAMERA... ACTION... LIGHTS!” THIS IS THE ORDER IN CG ANIMATION. EXCEPT NOBODY HAS TO SAY IT. ACTUALLY, NOBODY SAYS THAT ON A FILM SET EITHER. YOU’RE LEARNING SO MUCH TODAY!

Our Lighting department fuses technical savvy and a realist aesthetic sense to accomplish one goal: make every frame of the film look great! Drawing inspiration from our Director and Art Director, the lighting team uses Dream Factory’s cutting edge technology and amazing know-how to complete the look of our pictures.

In this stage of the process, the mood and emotion of our stories can be enhanced - and our character's performance reinforced - by leading the viewer's eye with strong, effective composition. The Lighting Technical Directors combine a mastery of Dream Factory software and an artistic sense to add richness and subtle complexity to such incredible imagery.

In the Effects department we use design and technical skills along with cutting edge software to simulate complex structures and motion. We create shattering land masses of rock and ice, as well as send dust and debris crashing into the ocean, creating massive splashes of vaporized water. We build peaceful formations of clouds and calm rolling oceans and then turn them into tidal waves, rain and tornadoes. Sometimes we even help integrate moving characters to their environment with effects such as footprints and dust.

Our Technical Directors are talented people with a good balance of art and technical training. It is no surprise that our backgrounds and interests are so varied. We have people from nine countries and who speak thirteen different languages. We have parents, hikers, rock climbers, photographers, painters, computer builders, a curler, break dancers, fitness enthusiasts, home brewers, composers, guitar players, an industrial electronic musician, a car racer, and a black smith and metallurgist. Our experiences range from escaping a communist regime to flying a plane.

Perhaps the best thing about Effects is our sense of humor. We always tackle challenging work with a joke!

The Dream Factory Character Simulation Department creates character-specific visual effects for clothing, hair and skin. Working closely with other departments such as Design, Animation, Modeling, Rigging, and Fur, the process of Character Simulation adds physically accurate and visually pleasing motion to a character's hair, skin, clothing and accessories. The addition of this motion, whether subtle or dynamic, helps flesh out the worlds we create, making the characters and environments even more believable.

During character development, Character Simulation will work with the design team, as well as the Director and Art Director to assess the needs and expectations for each character. We then develop strategies to meet these challenges, refining the look, feel, fit and behavior of characters' simulated elements.

During production, Character Simulation happens in tandem with the work of the animation department. Character Simulation TD's use combination of commercially available simulation software and in-house tool-kits to fine-tune the fit and physical properties of a garment in every shot. Character Simulation TD's must use a combination of technical, aesthetic and creative skills to efficiently create an attractive and consistent result.

The dynamic motion supplied by Character Simulation compliments the work of the motion created by Animation, adding weight, secondary motion, and personality to our animated characters. Whether it's the folds of a character's shirt, the swoosh of a villain's cape or the subtle swing of a character's hair, The work of the Character Simulation team adds to each shot, helping bring Dream Factory’s stories to life.

CROWDS

The Crowds department is tasked with filling the screen with characters. While we are the smallest department at Blue Sky, we get to build scenes with the largest head count.

We use both custom code and consumer software that take the models, rigs, and animated character clips built by the departments upstream in the pipeline and convert them into crowd assets. Essentially this means we try to make the rigs and models as simple and light as possible so we can shove as many characters into the scene as possible.

Then the fun part begins: actually building and simulating the crowds.

To create a huge crowd that looks dynamic and realistic we have to add a lot of variation to what the crowd characters are doing. The characters have to look like they really live in the scene. They should react to the environment, not walk into walls, wave when they see a friend, and run away or fight when they see an enemy.

Since we are dealing with large numbers of characters, it would be impossible to hand animate each one. Instead, we create simulations to drive the actions of the characters. The simulations define the dynamics and behavior of how the different characters should interact. We might create a particle simulation that defines physical forces, constraints, and rules that guide how the characters behave. Then each character's animation cycle is synced to each particle. We can build fuzzy logic brains for the crowd characters to allow them see, hear, and feel - so they can interact with other crowd characters and their environment on their own.

No matter what technique we use, the main goal it to make the crowd characters look and behave in ways that appear as though they are "acting" in believable ways.

COMPOSITING

Compositing is the stage of production where images of each element in a shot are combined and integrated to become one unified image. Compositing is a discipline that spans several departments at Blue Sky, but the Compositing department is where all the final elements are balanced together into a seamless, unified product... the final frame.

Picking up where the lighting department leaves off, different shots are given various levels of attention in Compositing. Tasks range from creating large vistas with digital matte paintings, creating and balancing atmospheric, volumetric, and environmental effects, in addition to handling more nuts and bolts tasks such as paint fixes, noise cleanup, and roto. Each and every shot in our Pictures goes through compositing as the last creative stage of the monoscopic movie making process. It is this attention to detail that helps immerse the audience in the picture and contributes to Dream Factory’s mission to pioneer creatively superior photo-realistic computer-generated character animation.

In R&D, the team writes software that our artists use to give Dream Factory Pictures their signature look. Besides drinking lots of coffee, our team divides their time between doing research and writing software, or what’s commonly referred to as code.

Research may involve staring out the window at the clouds or trees, playing with pieces of fur or blocks made out of peculiar materials, flicking our hair back and forth or simply looking at our own reflections in a mirror. Reading books and using the Internet counts as research too, but it’s more fun to stare out of the window and still be able to say you’re working.

Writing code essentially involves telling the computer exactly what to do, like cooking a recipe except in much more painstaking detail. Computers require overwhelming complex instructions to complete even a relatively basic task. One step wrong in the code and the world comes crashing down, or at least the computer will.

Here is an example of a function that was written in R&D.

A digital movie consists of 24 images per second and each image consists of pixels (about 2 million per image). Each pixel has a color. It’s our job to write software that determines what color each pixel should be. Somewhere in the code there is a function that figures out that color. The function is called "render". The render function itself invokes lots of other functions and they in turn invoke other functions and so on and so on.

Most of the time all goes well as function after function, pixel after pixel, image after image, movie after movie gets made. We smile, pat ourselves on the back and take a swig of coffee because we know just how good we are at writing those functions. But then all hell breaks loose. We choke on our coffee, cough until tears stream out of our eyes as we read the email announcing the trouble: Bad pixels in the freshly rendered images. Our render function failed! Crikey, now what?

After the initial panic subsides and we can think straight again, we do the first thing that comes to mind: try and blame someone else. We look and look to see if any of the artists involved didn't do something wrong. Sometimes they have, they are human after all, but sometimes it is our render function. If it is our render function we like to pretend it wasn't our mistake so we call it a "bug." Fixing that mistake is called debugging.

So here we are with a bug in our render function. That is to say, the bug might be in the render function, or in the functions it invokes or in the functions they invoke, etc. Trying to follow the trace of function invocations feels sometimes like going down the proverbial rabbit hole. Our coffee goes cold and our emails go unanswered as we hunt around for the sneaky creature.

Meanwhile deadlines loom, tension rises, the coffee, long cold, evaporates and becomes a sticky goo in the bottom of the cup when suddenly, just when we're getting desperate, a flash of insight reveals the problem. We climb out of the rabbit hole and proudly proclaim: We have found the Bug and Squashed It Dead. Everybody rejoices. The Bug Is Dead, The Bug is Dead. We are hailed as the great Bug Squashers.

It's such a great feeling to fix a bug that it almost seems better to make a mistake and debug it later than to do it right in the first place! Almost. It's an even better feeling to see what our artists do with the software when it works right. It's always so creative and sometimes quite surprising.

We always try to give them the best, most intuitive and easiest to use software possible. Often we end up doing things quite differently from coders elsewhere, just because we feel it is the best solution for our artists.

RENDER

The Render Department works hand-in-hand with nearly every department in the studio.

The department's most basic responsibility is the production of frames. All final work from each department is fed to the Render Department, where it is pulled together and the images (aka "frames") are calculated by the computers (aka "rendering"). The frames are then passed back to each department so that they can see what their work looks like in relation to the other departments' work.

Throughout the process, the Render Department is responsible for efficiency. A computer can take up to two or more days to calculate all the information that goes into a single frame. At an average of 129,600 final frames per film, the time and energy cost of rendering is extremely high. The Render team works hard to minimize the number of calculations per frame while retaining the high visual quality expected of a Dream Factory Pictures.

Though the Render Department's work is important, it can be nearly invisible in the final product. The team takes pride in keeping production as smooth and efficient as possible so that the movie can be keep pace with the myriad of deadlines and technological advances it faces during the production lifetime.

PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

Production Engineering is a team composed of people from both technical and artistic backgrounds providing studio tools. The team's unique mix of skills and talents are instrumental in providing both practical and straightforward technical solutions. The main focus is to bridge the technology gaps within the production pipeline and to develop tools and processes to improve interdepartmental work flows. We develop and integrate both proprietary and third party software into the pipeline, and we continually review the studio's pipeline and develop solutions to problematic areas.

Once the crew here on the east coast has finished their stunningly intricate, years-in-the-making, expert tasks - there's still the score, the mix, and the final color timing to do!

Dream Factory^® has teamed up with some of the motion picture industry's best and brightest composers, sound designers and post-production houses - these final steps truly transform the crew's hard labor into a beautifully polished gem, ready for theatrical release around the world.