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Animated about animation

After making a mark for himself in Hollywood, animation guru Jesh Krishna Murthy is back home to give tips to wannabe computer-screen dreamers. In conversation with Mandira Nayar

Jesh Krishna Murthy is in the `illusion business'. A name that billions of proud `desis' are yet to claim as their own -- unlike other rather tenuous Hollywood connections with India -- he worked with some of the biggest heroes like "Batman" and even the historically obsessive Lara Croft, behind the screen of course.

Creating an alternate real world on computer instead of the camera for `reel', he worked on movies like "The Fight Club", "Tomb Raider 2", "Batman Begins" and even the magical journey into the mind of a killer with sensuous J Lo in "The Cell". While he is bringing alive fantasies for the past 12 years, he is back home to give future computer-screen dreamers a little taste of the real world.

"You just don't add millions of colours in the frame because your computer can do it. India has to raise its bar for animation because people will come here not because they are getting bad animation cheap, but because they are getting reasonably good animation, at a competitive price. I am giving them a little real world experience," explains Jesh who in here in the Capital to hold a workshop on 3D animation and visual effects for Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC).

Going back to the basics with young people so that they can take their images to a different level, Jesh claims that India has to raise the bar of its animation standards to play with big boys. "After I finished my Class XII from Sardar Patel, I really didn't know what to do. I was artistic, but I was lost. I didn't want to do the usual IITs. Someone showed me animation. It was like someone had lit a light-bulb. I knew then, what I wanted to do," he says. But after the `light-bulb' moment, chasing the dream was not easy. Having done the rounds of all the studios in Delhi, rejected because he had no degree in fine arts, he finally got a break with an architect working out of a garage at Safdarjung Enclave.

"He was doing walk-through of buildings and he let me work. I also got to work with other people in the same area putting together annoying advertisements that come at the bottom of the screen. I am really sorry if I really annoyed millions of people," he says laughing.

Moving from tiny garages to Germany to study animation after his addiction to animation, Jesh worked in the biggest animation special-effects studio in Canada. Obsessed by reproducing what he sees in everyday life to the screen of his computer, he once described the dilemma in his head as someone who can't drink a cup of coffee because he is busy trying to think of ways to reproduce the froth dancing on it.

"We used to pitch movies for other studios including Universal Studios. I just finished working on "Batman Begins" two months ago. I also worked on a movie with live action starring Ice Cube called "Are We There Yet". The toughest film that I had to do was "Water Giant". Water is the hardest thing to reproduce. I almost went insane trying to figure out how to create the effect. I spent more than two years developing my own water-system," he says.

Trying to fill in the "missing" piece of the Indian animation industry. From getting young recruits to just observe to create, Jesh hopes to be able to get `desis' to really cash in on this bit of computer based technology that they are still to `perfect'.

"I want to be able to help young people like me who want to do animation so that they don't have to go through the tough time I had to do. I am working with Maya Entertainment to raise the skill of their people. I would like to say that I am sowing the seeds. I want them to think differently, take pride in their work and decide what is good work," he says.

With Bollywood dreams now after conquering the West he wants to work on animation in Hindi movies at home.

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