‘Roadside Romeo’ to bring Indian animation to life

If the brahmachari monkey-god Hanuman’s story created a stir in the animation industry, it will be a love story later...

If the brahmachari monkey-god Hanuman’s story created a stir in the animation industry, it will be a love story later this year “whose success can open up gates for animation in India,” says the CEO of Tata Elxsi Madhukar Dev. Tata Elxsi’s Visual Computing Labs (VCL), has completed nearly 95 per cent of the work in Roadside Romeo, a film being jointly produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF) and Walt Disney.

By animation standards, it is the costliest animation film being made in India. “The film’s cost is nearly equal to that of a big budget hindi commercial movie,” said a senior officer of VCL. Since the minimum budget for a mainstream commercial venture is around Rs 40 crore, Roadside Romeo is expected to cost the same if not more on post production. VCL has a three-film contract with YRF and Walt Disney and has started work on the second venture. “We have started the next film and it will also be a on the lines of a typical Bollywood potboiler with the voices of established stars,” said VCL’s creative director Pankaj Khandpur.

Roadside Romeo is an animated love story of a dog with the voices of actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. It is written and directed by Jugal Hansraj. The film has been 18 months in making now and is slated release on October 24, 2008. “We started making the film on January 1, 2007 and in a couple of months we should be done with the production after which the marketing will begin. Over 150 people were involved in making this movie with nearly 100 people present throughout the production period,” said Khandpur.

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VCL used the facilities of Tata Sons’ supercomputer ‘Eka’ for the movie. Eka is the world’s fourth fastest supercomputer developed by Computational Research Laboratories — a wholly owned division of Tata Sons. Tata Elxsi sees a great opportunity in the animation industry as it wants to increase VCL’s share in the company’s total revenues substantially. “Presently VCL contributes around 5 per cent of the total revenues with embedded product design services generating 75 per cent and industrial design & engineering contributing 20 per cent. By the end of financial year 2009-10, we would like to increase VCL’s contribution to 20 per cent of the total revenues of the company,” said Dev.

The company presently employs around 3,500 people and plans to increase the headcount to 4,500 by the end of FY09. It is also setting up a design studio in the UK for industrial design which should be operational in 2 months. It gets 85 per cent of its revenues from clients in Japan, Europe and the US.

Romantic scale

•Roadside Romeo may cost Rs 40 crore or more, on the scale of big-budget Bollywood movies

•VCL has used the facilites of Tata Sons’ supercomputer ‘Ekta’ for the movie

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•Film has been 18 months in the making and is to release on October 24, 2008

•Over 250 hands involved in the making of the movie and its post-production

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