'Roadside Romeo' gives Tata Elxsi a shot in arm

BANGALORE, INDIA: Tata Elxsi Ltd, a provider in engineering services and embedded products today announced that it has been nominated by Hollywood-based Visual Effects Society (VES) for delivering outstanding animation in “Roadside Romeo”, India’s pioneering CGI animated theatrical contemporary entertainment movie.

It has been nominated in the category of “Outstanding Animation in an Animated Motion Picture” and will compete with “Bolt” (Walt Disney Pictures), “Kung Fu Panda” (DreamWorks Animation), “Wall-E” (Disney-Pixar), and “Waltz With Bashir” (Sony Pictures Classics), said a press release.

The Visual Effects Society, with more than 1,800 members in 17 countries, is the entertainment industry's only organization representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including artists, technologists, studio leaders, supervisors and producers in all areas of entertainment from film, television and commercials to music videos and games, the release added.

The 7th Annual VES Awards would be presented on Saturday, February 21 in Los Angeles.

A co-production of Walt Disney Pictures and India’s Yash Raj Films, “Roadside Romeo”, created by Tata Elxsi Ltd’s Visual Computing Labs (VCL) studios in Mumbai, was released globally in the Hindi language, with English subtitles, in October, 2008.

Earlier this month, “Roadside Romeo” was named “Best Animated Film” at the 15th Annual Star Screen Awards in Mumbai.

“Roadside Romeo” is considered to be India’s first purely-entertainment animated theatrical motion picture, including eight original songs and five fully-choreographed ‘Bollywood’ musical numbers, the release said.

“This is indeed a proud moment for us and a great achievement for the Indian animation industry. Roadside Romeo is an innovation because it exhibits and brings together the intricate technological detailing that goes into making a detailed 3D film. Indian animation has truly come a long way and we are happy that through this movie we have been able to raise the bar on the quality of animation in India”, said, Pankaj Khandpur, creative director, VCL, Tata Elxsi Ltd.

Detailing the production process, Khandpur added, “Our VCL team got involved in the creative process right from the beginning. When Jugal Hansraj, the director of the movie shared with us the script, we began conceptualizing each individual character and their environments and we began to draw them, the old fashioned way, using pencil and paper. This process lasted three months.”