Digital DREAMSCAPES

Virtual production has made a big impact on Hollywood. Will this technological tsunami also wash over Indian cinema, drowning out conventional filmmaking? 

- Tanul Thakur 

I'M standing near a gas station in the American countryside. Small triangular flags, hung from the - ceiling, flutter. The alphabet "E" in the glowing sign "Golden" flickers on the rooftop. The tube lights below it turn on and off. Across the highway, tall cacti dot the landscape. A mountain lounges afar, soaking the magic hour. It is serene, inviting, beautiful-and eternal.

Because this magic hour will remain forever. So will anything (and everything) else. I can shrink the mountain, brighten the sun, whip the wind. I can make the cacti eucalyptus, the golden sky blue, and the triangular flags rectangular. My fingers can tame time and modify nature. How? Two words: virtual production. Because I'm neither in America nor at a gas station. Heck, I'm not even outdoors. I'm in Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad, marvelling at a curved 60-by-20-feet LED wall.

Even though this technology hasn't dominated Indian cinema yet, it's become a potent force in Hollywood, marking such films and web series as The Mandalorian (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), The Fabelmans (2022), and many others. A study by Grand View Research, excerpted in Bloomberg in March 2023, estimates the global virtual production market swelling from $2.1 billion in 2023 to $6.78 billion by 2030. Grand View Research's October 2023 report stated that India's virtual production market will grow at 22%, reaching $507.1 million by 2030.