Just flew in last week from Mumbai, India, where I worked as a Sequence Supervisor on 
Sin City, A Dame To Kill For.

My tour there lasted 9 months, all with Prime Focus World -- a great bunch of people.  I spent the first couple of months organizing and supervising a team of junior compositors to pull basic keys in NUKE on about 1260 of the 2500 shots -- just over half.  This was a great assignment, as I had some time to do some training of the team in my keying methods.

Then I was moved over to Sequence Supervise a big bunch of shots.  My team and I did lighting and final renders and put out comps on over 300 shots in 6 months.  All the shots involved building virtual sets and massive amounts of in-comp color grading to get the on set lighting to work with the style of the film and lighting of the sets.  On another 100 or so shots I did some prep work and planning, ordering paint, roto etc. from support departments, but management rebalanced shots a few times for optimal production, so I can't really count these in my shot tally.


In addition to supervising, I gave informal training in NUKE compositing methods to my team.   I also consulted with the Michael Pecchia, Director of  VFX Training, drawing up a complete training outline for new artists.


Web reviewer Topless Robot nailed it:

" It's all about the post-production on a movie like this. "

www.toplessrobot.com

One of my shots from the trailer.  Dwight (Josh Brolin) has something on his mind.  Not the final version.
opens 22 August 2014
source:www.toplessrobot.com

Prime Focus is a great place to work.  Merzin Tavaria (co-founder and chief creative director) has inspiring vision for the company and VFX in India and the global market.  Other managers were responsive to changing needs and schedules.  My crew worked very hard and was eager to learn and perform well.  HR took good care of us expatriates, so we could focus attention on our work.

More than that I cannot say, after all, every company has its NDA secret recipes!  I can say that the recent merger announcements are great news and will greatly effect VFX post worldwide.  (http://www.primefocusworld.com/)

This was my third tour in India, where I previously worked for Reliance Media Works and GEON Studios.   I stayed this time at the wonderful Renaissance Marriot at Lake Powai.

Working and living in India is always a challenge -- far from home, family and friends; a change in diet, climate, and tempo.  But after a short adjustment period, you get into the groove.  The people are like people everywhere in a huge metropolis - stressed.  But they were also friendly and pleasant.  There is also enormous poverty counterbalancing enormous wealth.  The crew and management were excellent to work with, as I said before.   I look forward to going back again.

A view from my hotel
I started every morning looking out my window to see how much the water level was dropping and to look for birds, cattle, crocodiles, fishing boats and people wading in the lake.  Across Lake Powai, on the south shore, is Hiranandani Gardens, where I lived in 2010-11.  My flat was in Enternia, the tall double one third from right.