SAN FRANCISCO – Industrial Light & Magic (www.ilm.com), the award-winning visual effects division of Lucasfilm Ltd., is expanding its global operations by adding a new studio in Mumbai, India. ILM is headquartered in San Francisco, and has existing studios in Vancouver, London, Singapore and Sydney. The new Mumbai studio will be led by Kiran ‘KP’ Prasad, who was formerly head of studio at Dneg Bangalore & Chennai. Prasad will report to ILM SVP and GM Janet Lewin.
“With five global studios consistently operating at capacity and continuing to grow, the time was right for ILM to expand once again to meet the industry’s increasing demand for high-caliber visual effects,” explains Lewin. “This new full-fledged visual effects studio in India will allow us to offer even greater capacity while ensuring that we always meet the high-quality bar that our clients expect of us.”
“We’re excited to be building our ILM Studio in India, where we can recruit the top artistic and technical talent from the visual effects industry now in India,” adds Rob Bredow, SVP and chief creative officer of ILM. “This is the perfect time for ILM to form our sixth studio, where artists will leverage our full pipeline of disciplines working across a wide variety of exciting shows – at the top quality and reliability our creative partners have come to expect from ILM.”
Prasad says she is excited and honored to be a part of the ILM team.
"ILM has always been on the forefront of technological and creative innovation in the visual effects industry, and there is no better time to start our studio in India than now, as the Indian VFX industry is poised for spectacular growth in the coming years...I look forward to working with the executive team to set up the studio from the ground up, building a world-class facility and bringing the best of the diverse Indian talent together for an opportunity with endless possibilities.”