MUMBAI, India -- Here's another cross-cultural startup and new global business model for entrepreneurs. In a big move that has drawn scant media attention, producer Barrie Osborne (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix) here and other entertainment industry heavyweights have quietly launched GEON Studios, here a
state-of-the-art visual effects facility in Mumbai that will blend film industry talent in India and the world. GEON's employees recently settled into an office and production site near Mumbai's international airport -- a wise move, given Mumbai's legendary traffic jams. At the recent FICCI/FRAMES global media conference here, click here GEON co-founder and producer Michael Peyser (Imagining Argentina, Ruthless People, Desperately Seeking Susan) here told me that "we're in Mumbai because we believe it's the right place to be for the cinema of the future." India and other Asian countries are hotbeds of film animation, a growing multibillion-dollar field. click on Time story here Other GEON founders include Madhu Sudhanan, an executive and pioneer here in India's visual effects and animation industry, and Jon Labrie, here former chief technology officer at Weta Digital who worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Osborne has long been influenced by master Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, here and he has worked with filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. here He told AnimationXpress.com reporter Anand Gurnani here that lower costs were an early factor in opening GEON in India, a hotbed of computer animation and other digital technology. But soon he realized that India's entertainment industry talent -- directors, actors, writers, animators -- was the biggest attraction. Osborne told AnimationXpress.com that "GEON is going to be a VFX studio whose work will reflect its complete understanding of the filmmaking domain . . . It is going to be a VFX facility that is anchored in the art of storytelling . . . We do our own movies, and we want to use this creative facility to be our toolbox" in collaboration with other filmmakers.
GEON's first project: The Warrior's Way, starring Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns, The Horse Whisperer), here Geoffrey Rush (Elizabeth, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shine) here and Dong-Kun Jang, a South Korean actor here who has starred in several top-grossing Asian films, including Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War, and The Promise, a Golden Globe-nominated film. (See video clip.) "He's the Brad Pitt of Asia," Peyser said.
Peyser added that The Warrior's Way will use similar digital technology to 300, the film of the Battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and Persians. GEON's film, to be released late this summer, will "introduce audiences to a magical world, like a Fellini movie or a Pirates of the Caribbean, with a touch of Quentin Tarantino." Peyser said that mainstream audiences worldwide are more open to cultural change and new filmmaking styles. Good storytelling and shared mythologies, he said, are universal.
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