Hi Soumyadipta! Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I am a creative person. I like meeting people and interacting with ideas. One of the first things I fell in love with was creating compelling visuals either in 2D or 3D or both. As my career grew, I was blessed with opportunities to meet and learn from amazing leaders in industry across the world. It is magical how every time I look ahead, it still feels like so many adventures are still yet to come.
What drew you to 3D DMP?
3DDMP is a medium which involves both 2D and 3D which was the key fun point for me. It involves so many possibilities and creative problem solving and creates movie magic. The tools are always developing and broadening more possibilities for the frame. There is a certain dance between the disciplines that makes quite a fun experience for me.
How would you explain what 3D DMP is to someone who had never heard of it?
3DDMP is like painting over a glass window – so to speak. If you see the city skyline or see the mountains from your window – imagine painting an aeroplane on the glass so that it looks like it is there. That is how 3D DMP, meaning 3D Digital Matte Painting came about.
In the early days, highly skilled painters would paint a castle on the glass and place it in front of the camera so that it looked like there was a castle in the background wherever they were shooting. If you are finding yourself curious about how the angles and lighting matched – you may have a knack for it, and we would welcome you to join our in-depth lessons at the Academy.
Talk us through one or two of your favorite projects from Technicolor Group and explain why you’ve chosen them
I was a Harry Potter fan when I was growing up, and when I joined Technicolor back in 2011 I landed in the Final Harry Potter movie – I can certainly say J.K Rowlin’s life work made it meaningful for me. It is hard to explain how overjoyed I was to work on the project. My first shot was Harry stabbing the Horcrux while they were escaping the chambers of secrets. Then there was another shot where Harry and Voldemort were fighting in the climax. There was a lot of CG involved in Voldemort’s nose and those close-up shots were quite a professional experience to gain in the CG industry.
Other movies like Disney’s Jhon Carter of Mars – that involved so many fun shots near the climax where John Carter the protagonist had to fight an army of CG aliens. He was jumping, swinging his blades, flying across the sky against the CG characters. There was so much fun work and disciplines across the multiple disciplines and different people in the departments across the globe that it made the experience worthwhile. To say it in short – I had a lot of fun working in all these projects like Harry Potter, Disney’s John Carter, Wrath of the Titans, World War Z, Man of Steel, X-Men, Prometheus, etc.
What sort of existing skills should someone have before joining the 3D DMP course at The Academy?
For 3DDMP, as the title itself means 3D Digital Matte Painting – having the knowledge of 3D Software such as Photoshop, Maya, Mari, Nuke, and skills like Digital Painting, Modeling, Texturing, Look Dev, and Compositing can come very handy and proves to be very essential in a 3DDMP division.
What’s your favorite thing about being part of The Academy?
The new connection, imparting new knowledge and mentoring new talents across the globe is very fulfilling for me. I love meeting new people, especially young creative talent who love camera frames and share the same enthusiasm for movie magic.
In my ventures outside Technicolor, I had some fun projects that I have wrorked on, such as Stan Lee’s Chakra the Invincible and recently Swiggy the Food app. They extended their branch for groceries called Swiggy Instamart. Happy to say the graphics you see in Swiggy Instamart, the guy delivering on the scooter or the woman handling the packages, are done by me.
Discover more about The Academy and apply for courses here.
