Lord of 'The Lord of the Rings' to co-found studio

Barrie M Osborne, the legendary producer of Hollywood blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix is set to co-found a visual effects studio in India which will cater to the global feature film industry.

Osborne will partnering N Madhusudhanan, another visual effects veteran in the Indian movie industry for the studio.

The studio will be on the lines of the famous Weta Digital in New Zealand which recently shot to fame for its path-breaking work for 'The Lord of the Rings'.

Madhusudhanan is a Presidents Award Winner in the visual effects field and is the first Indian to qualify as an active member in the Visual Effects Society, Los Angeles.

He was part of the visual effects team for The Lord of the Rings.

Said Madhusudhanan: "Osborne has been a mentor to me for a long time and we will shortly be partners. We plan to set up high-level visual effects studio in India to serve the global markets. We plan to rope in a few other Academy Award winners as partners for our studio. Hollywood is opening up and it will not be long before a lot of the visual effects work is outsourced to India and we intend to capitalise on this next big opportunity."

He added that the Indian visual effects talents' skills are on the maturity curve and it will take a while to be of the global standards.

"The US market took nearly 20 years to be at the level they are and India also will take its time to reach that level, but may not take that long," he noted.

Osborne also highlighted that training pockets are important to develop the talent pool in India and that he will encourage this activity as much as possible in this country.