MUMBAI: Eros International has forayed into visual effects in association with Charles Darby. The new venture will be called EyeQube Studios Private Limited. Eros will provide working capital funding to the new venture of up to $5 – 7 million.

While Eros will have a majority shareholding in the new company, Darby will hold the balance of the shares.

Darby, who will be heading the new company as creative director, is one of the pioneers of digital matte paintings and has been associated with more than 45 films in the last 13 years.

EyeQube will provide cutting edge visual effects platform for Indian filmmakers. The company will employ supervisors and artists to run “master classes” in individual departments and will bring in trainers who are, amongst others, ex-WETA, ILM and MPC staff.

The company is being positioned to cater to the top-end visual effects work in the industry and internationally. It will exclusively handle visual effects for all of Eros International’s home productions and co-productions.

Some of the projects that are being worked upon by the company are Eros International’s Aladin and Drona. While Aladin stars Amitabh Bachahan, Sanjay Dutt and Ritesh Deshmukh; Drona stars Abhishek Bachahan and Priyanka Chopra. Both movies are scheduled to release next year.

EyeQube Studios has kicked off a massive recruitment drive within India to find the brightest and the best to be the founding core team. The EyeQube website, www.eyeqube.com, will also be offering details of the positions available in the company.

Eros International president India Sunil Lulla said, “Eros is immensely proud to announce its foray into the world of visual effects and who better than Charles Darby to lead us from the front. EyeQube will help raise the bar of Indian visual effects and catapult our industry to international standards. Our artistes deserve better, our filmmakers deserve better and above all our audiences deserve better. EyeQube will produce not only Indian films with visual effects never seen before, but also be selectively involved with a few prestigious international projects. This is our chance to build something special for the Indian film industry.”

Darby added, “India has talent, drive, passion and ambition. What it lacked was infrastructure and exposure to the right opportunity, which Eros is bringing to the table. In a backdrop where there is still a large amount of confusion as to the difference between Animation and Visual Effects, EyeQube will be something like Hollywood in a Box to the Indian filmmakers. Our collective strengths will allow us to channelize the talent within India into a very special facility that focuses on quality rather than quantity and sets exemplary standards in their work. Every image we create will speak volumes about our company. They will make clear our innovation, our attention to detail, our whole company ethos. Each image will be a statement of our creativity. We intend to change not just visual effects in India but to form a company that alters the way large films are produced in India, bringing a creative system in place more reminiscent to Hollywood.”

Some of Darby’s work includes films such as Titanic, The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Fifth Element, Minority Report, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I Robot. Darby also won an Emmy in 2006 for his art direction and VFX designs for HBO’S Rome. The other television series Darby was involved with, Dune, also won an Emmy for best VFX.

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