Special effect outsourcing growing in India

Bangalore: The outsourcing to India is now expanding its operations to the area of special effects for movies. Executives in India say that cost pressures are pushing studios to send more work to India, where special effects projects are up to 40 percent cheaper than that in the U.S.

"Economic conditions are playing out favorably for us and people are more willing to experiment," said S. Nagarajan, the Chief Operating Officer of Visual Computing Labs, the visual effects and animation unit of Tata Elxsi, a prominent studio in India. Tata Elxsi VCL worked on the "Spider-Man 3" cutting out studio stunt shots of Spiderman. The company has billed as much in the first three months of this year as it did in nine months last year.

Pankaj Khandpur, Tata ELxsi VCL's Creative Director said,"In 2003 and 2004, when I would visit the U.S. and meet with visual effects companies, I'd be told we can't outsource it. It requires creative control and you are too far away. But those naysayers are now telling him, "Hey, let's talk.'"

Currently, the domestic market is maturing as the Indian audiences have developed a taste for high-tech Hindi flicks. So far, most of the Indian companies have done work in midlevel rotoscoping and compositing, which allow filmmakers to blend complex shots.

Although the production standard in India is generally lower than the U.S., the distance between Hollywood and Bollywood is narrowing in terms of the usage of special effects.