Vancouver

I moved to Vancouver last month and started working here at MPC as a Digital Matte Painter. It's been a great experience so far and I really look forward to learn from the amazing pack of artists here.

This week I also noticed REDHOT VFX has posted a glimpse of what I worked for them during last year, you can check out the video here  and here is couple of screenshots.

DMP

Final Comp

Mars Orbiter Mission Tribute

Here is quick one I did couple of days back as my tribute to the success of ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission.

London Calling

It's been a busy couple of months and I haven't updated anything on this blog for a while. I moved to London last month to join as a Compositor at Double Negative Visual Effects. It's been a quite overwhelming experience here both at work and with life in this beautiful old and modern metropolis.  I hope to make the best of my time here and try to finish up some personal work. 

The Great Indian Creative Dilemma

According to various estimates, around 1.5 million engineering graduates emerge from India each year—significantly more than many Western countries, including the U.S. Yet, India is still struggling to make a lasting global impact when it comes to innovative products or services.

And this isn’t limited to the tech sector. It’s even more apparent in inherently creative industries like film, animation, and architecture.

Having worked in the film and commercial industries across five countries, including India, I’ve seen this issue up close. The difference isn’t talent—we have that in abundance. The difference lies in culture and mindset.

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Entrepreneurship Is Growing, But Innovation Still Lags

Yes, India has seen a steady rise in entrepreneurship over the years. But innovation—true, game-changing innovation—is still rare.

At the root of this are two key issues:

• Our education system, which often discourages curiosity and exploration.

• Our cultural values, which reward obedience over questioning.

We build our values on fixed dogmas, but the world around us is rapidly evolving—interconnected, transparent, and open. In such a world, lacking a creative culture leads to mediocrity. Only businesses that offer authentic solutions will survive.

Innovation today isn’t just about great ideas—it’s about redefining economic value and shifting consumer mindsets. Companies like Apple have understood this for decades and built their core culture around it.

We have the talent, the infrastructure, and the potential. What we need is an environment that nurtures creativity.

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Hierarchy: The Silent Killer of Creativity

One of the biggest blockers of creativity in India is the rigid hierarchy in workplaces.

Drawing from our cultural values, people are often afraid to speak up to someone above them. This suppresses the creative flow of ideas and encourages people to play it safe. Over time, this results in mediocrity, and our ability to compete at global standards weakens.

Creativity thrives on open communication and psychological safety. When team members feel safe, ideas flow. When they feel judged or silenced, innovation stops.

Leadership plays a critical role here. It’s not about control, but about creating space—loosening the reins, not tightening them.

At Pixar Animation Studios, for instance, Ed Catmull, President of Pixar, shares:

“Within Pixar, members of any department can approach anyone in another department to solve problems, without having to go through ‘proper’ channels. Managers understand they don't always have to be the first to know about something going on in their realm, and that it's okay to walk into a meeting and be surprised.”

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Our Fear of Failure Holds Us Back

Another cultural roadblock to creativity in India is our attitude towards failure.

We stigmatize failure. We hide it. We rarely analyze it. And as a result, we don’t learn from it.

But failure is essential to innovation. Every breakthrough idea is the result of multiple failures and iterations.

We need to build a culture where failure is treated as a step forward—not a dead end. A place where people are trusted to experiment, take risks, and recover when things don’t work.

As William L. McKnight, former President and Chairman of 3M, once said:

“Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.”

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Creativity Can’t Be Controlled—But It Can Be Encouraged

If we want to push innovation beyond the usual boundaries of functionality and design, we need to let go of control.

Yes, that sounds risky. But great teams are often unpredictable by nature.

You can’t force creativity. You can only provoke it—by creating the right environment.

That means encouraging:

• Radical thinking

• Freedom of speech

• Cross-functional collaboration

• Constructive criticism

• Playfulness and fun

• Risk-taking (with support)

Companies like Google famously allow employees to spend 20% of their time on personal innovation projects. 3M did it before them, with their “15% rule” and even an “Innovator Award” for employees who created profitable ideas during that free time.

In India, Tata Group’s Innovista program is a great example of homegrown innovation culture. According to Sunil Sinha, Chief of Group Quality at Tata Sons:

“Tata Innovista has become a great indicator of the success of the innovation drive in the Tata group — and of the inherent capabilities of its people. The trends observed in the 2013 edition signify a growing culture of innovation in the group with elements of technology-orientation, cross-pollination, and risk-taking ability.”

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It’s About People, Not Just Outcomes

Creative work culture isn’t about short-term goals or fast results. It’s about the process and people.

If companies build strong, well-functioning teams and give them a creative platform, the products and services will follow naturally.

As Tony Hsieh, the late CEO of Zappos and author of Delivering Happiness, put it:

“It’s not me saying to our employees, this is where our culture is. It’s more about giving employees permission and encouraging them to just be themselves.”

A truly creative workspace is about making the day-to-day experience fulfilling. It should value:

• Employee well-being

• Shared ownership

• Mutual respect

• Love for the work itself

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In Conclusion

I believe all humans are inherently creative. But in India, due to cultural and social conditioning, that creativity often needs to be reawakened.

We need to create spaces—schools, offices, studios—where curiosity is encouraged, risk is supported, and diverse voices are heard.

Let me end with one final quote from Ed Catmull:

“The phrase is important in the community, but it just doesn't have any effect on the behavior.”

It’s not enough to say we value creativity—we have to live it.

Concept video - Goldfish, a wish out of water

Here is an experimental video done by me and my friends based on the below quote by Terence Mckenna.

"Well, we are fish swimming in consciousness; and yet we know it's there. Well, the reason we know it's there is because if you perturb it, then you see it"

Update, January 2013

Its been really busy last 4 months back in Istanbul, Turkey and now I am finally back home. I had lot of fun in Istanbul and met some wonderful people and made really good friends who gave me beautiful memories. Work wise, it was quite good to back at some solid compositing in Nuke since I been focusing on matte painting quite a lot lately. So It feels great go back to roots with the all aesthetic experience I gained from matte painting jobs to apply it on more technique centric job that is film compositing.

I been keeping myself busy last week and I am very happy to finish my new reel and website which showcases most of good stuffs I did last year from "Eega" and "The Expendables 2".

www.rkvfx.com

Soon I will be off to Beijing, China for a short term gig at Base FX so I wouldn't blogging for a month or so.

Update, October 2012

I have been here in Istanbul, Turkey  from early last month to work on a Kazakhstan  Sci-Fi feature film "Phantom Hunt" at Ida Pictures as a Compositor / Matte painter. It's been pretty busy so far working mostly on comps shots and on some matte painting shots as well.

Istanbul is really beautiful, historical and scenic place and I been really enjoying my stay here so far though my work schedule keeps me at the studio mostly. But anyways, I am still managed to explore the city  quite a bit with my foreigners friends at work. I guess things are going to be more exciting by next month since it will be getting to the wrap up stage of this project...

Update April 2012

I couldn't post anything last month due to my busy schedule, so here it goes. Well, I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria early this month to join as a Matte painter /  compositor at Worldwide FX on a 3 months contract to work on the film "The Expendables 2".

First of all, I am really enjoying the work and weather here. So far I been mostly working on matte paintings but hope to do some complex camera projections set up as well by the end of the deadline. I must say I am really privileged to work under veteran  matte painting supervisor Metin Gungor and to work alongside with bunch of talented & hard working fellow matte painters. It's been great experience so far and I hope to learn much more during my time here.

Another update back in India is the trailer release of much awaited film Eega, in which I  played important roles as a on-set VFX coordinator, Senior compositor and Matte painter. It is good to see that couple of environment shots and a comp shots that I worked  made into the trailer. The movie looks really promising for the local industry and I am wishing good luck to all my friends back in Makuta VFX to see this movie through its final lap of post production.

Compositing | Matte painting Reel 2011

I have my new reel and it comprises mostly of feature work I did this year in Makuta VFX, so many thanks to guys & girls there for all the support and help.

rahul reel 2011 from Rahul on Vimeo.

Here are couple of screen shots and a detailed breakdown can be downloaded  from here. Hope you enjoyed the new reel and I would really like to hear all your comments. 

Android apps for VFX folks

Well, I got myself a new Android phone couple of weeks back and I was hovering over the net to find any good apps which will help me on location while shoots or in front of workstation and here are few interesting ones I came across. 

Kodak Cinema

This one comes with a nifty film calculator which calculates how much amount of film is need for given time and film format. The depth of field calculator which does exactly what it says and awesome Film/Video Glossary which gives you instant offline access to definition of all the industry standard terminologies.

I feel this is must have app for anyone in film/video industry as the glossary feature invaluable at any time. Also it features online help from Kodak support personal and their online resources. 

CamCalc Free

CamCalc is another free goody I came across, apart from Depth of Field, Focal Length Equivalents, Flash Calculation and other cinematography calculators I found Field of View and Miniature Calculator extremely useful for VFX folks as FOV calculator can be used while matching moving camera or aligning a camera in 3D scene. And Miniature Calculator will always comes in handy during on set VFX supervision to determine frame rates, distances and speed for a given scale.

D-Measures Free

The below video says it all

It would be very useful on  location shoots for taking quick notes regarding measurements of props or set itself.

Super Swiss Army Knife

As the name suggests this is multi-function app  with the following features, Ruler, Protractor, Flashlight, Compass, Gradienter, Wall picture, Vertical andTelemeasurement.

I think among the above features, Ruler, Vertical and Telemeasurement can be used in set. Vertical can be easily used to check whether  items are vertical and showing the angle of deviation through help the phone camera. I am haven't personally used Telemesuremnt but according to the app decscription it uses simple 3 steps to  measure the distance around any object and its height with help phone camera. This again can be used while on location but I doubt how accurate this could be but still time saver for those approx measurements.

Alarm Clock Plus
Last but not the least, this is the best alarm clock for Android out there so never be late for early morning call time for shoots ;)

PS: I think there could be still  lot of good film/vfx centric apps out there which  I may haven't discovered yet so I will try to update this post if I find any or if you know any app please do drop a comment here.  

Changing gear

I got myself this sexy thing yesterday and it's feels great :)

And this is what under her hood:

At her heart she got a AMD Turion X2 RM74 64 bit, 2.2 GHz. Her face is so shiny and beautiful because of her ATI Radeon HD 4570 512 MB dedicated memory. To remember all the random stuffs I throw at her she got a 320 GB HDD. Finally to handle all of me at once she got 4 GB of RAM ;)