Category: BOT Culture

A cup of coffee, a few BOTs, an incredible desire to be the change and here you have it.. BOT VFX’s latest and perhaps most incredible idea ever!

Over the years while BOTs have been actively associated with several social impact initiatives be it Flood relief work, making a difference to the lives to the less fortunate, providing clean drinking water at schools or more recently with the Beach cleaning initiative, there was always an underlying feeling that we needed to look at something more sustainable and permanent, something with which we can create a small revolution of sorts in bringing about a change.

And so it came, in the form of two of our most talented artists Nithya and Vijay, both of them hearing and speech challenged, yet one of BOTs biggest shining stars for the resilience with which they fought against many odds to today deliver some of the best work for the biggest Hollywood Movies across the world. With over 5 years of experience today both Nithya and Vijay have become the pillars of our Roto and Paint departments, and we thought why not use all their experience and expertise in the VFX field spread this joy of creating magic (VFX) to several others who are challenged like them. So was born what we believe is perhaps one of the most incredible ideas for us – the 1st ever ‘Build-a-BOT Internship Program’ exclusively for the hearing and speech challenged.

“Time and again we miss acknowledging that all this isn’t possible without the trust and support of our amazing clients and the faith, belief and patience of our Sups, Leads, Artists and Support teams – A big thank you to all those who make such incredible dreams possible!” remarks Sreyans, co-founder of BOT VFX

Starting up with a batch of over 7 such Individuals with training done by none other than Nithya and Vijay using sign languages, the Internship is already underway into its 4th week, and if one had to go by reviews, the bunch is doing amazingly well and likely to hit production in a few weeks time.

“When the Idea first came up, I just jumped in joy, because this would perhaps be the most fulfilling role for me ever, I can understand the pain one goes through to get settled in life, however, in its truest sense VFX has been the magic for mine and I just hoped that I could pass on the knowledge to several others who could make a career out here” says Nithya communicating with us by writing on a piece of paper. Vijay her colleague with similar challenges and himself a BOT veteran remarked through a thumbs up “There just cannot be anything better! If we can successfully carry this, this will really make a lot of people who have had challenges in hearing and speech really believe in themselves and their ability to be completely independent”

Deepak, co-founder of BOT VFX quips “Our collective dream is to have India’s first VFX team fully managed and run by the challenged and we are not very far from there” And, we couldn’t agree more, that truly “Magic has no language”- and this drive by the BOT team is sure to create another young generation of independent and amazingly creative artists for the industry!

News coverage by the Deccan Chronicle: Disability doesn’t deter their passion for work, Deccan Chronicle, 30th OCT 2016

The early morning chirping of birds, the light breeze, a small drizzle, a rainbow just appearing out of nowhere creating a wow and an exclamation of Joy! While these are things most of us have experienced as Children, it is hard to guess if the coming generation would ever get to experience the bliss of nature, if the current rate of pollution continues unabated.  It’s a given that our kids and the coming generations would be deprived of enjoying the lap of mother nature as we did.

Deepak remarks  that as the saying goes “Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but doesn’t get you anywhere”, the BOTs decided to give all the pessimism a miss and look forward towards doing our part to make a difference and as is very famously coined term by the great Mahatma Gandhi “BE THE CHANGE”.

On the 20^th of June’2016 the BOTs joined hands with the Chennai Trekking Club which organised a massive Cleaning exercise across the length and breadth of the Chennai’s coastal area spreading from the Marina to Uthandi. A sizeable bunch of BOTs gave the early morning blues a big punch of enthusiasm and were up and ready at 6am, to do our bit to conserve Nature.

Allotted the picturesque Besant Nagar beach by the Organisers, incidentally also BOTs favourite venue to play Volleyball, the clean-up began sharp at 6am. From glass bottles to cans, from plastic packets to cleaning up the food waste from the night before, this was one humungous yet satisfying task. As we went about cleaning the wide open area –  a range of emotions stuck each one of the BOTs;

Viswanathan, one of our roto lead quotes “This to me in an indirect reflection or mirror in some ways; As I cleaned, I realised how we commit several mistakes which we could easily avoid to better conserve our nature. The whole clean-up exercise was quite an eye opener and I am glad to have been a part of it”

Whereas Mahesh, Anand, Ganesh, Satish, Balaji and Prashanth who had co-ordinated the efforts from the BOTs side remarked that this activity filled all of us with a sense of pride, that every BOT was upto the task with a smile, a smile of happiness and joy that he or she could be a part of “BEING THE CHANGE” we want to see.

Just for the stat buffs, this amazing exercise organised by the Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) meant that more than 4500 volunteers from 140 organisations were part of the exercise and 38 tonnes of waste was collected from 20 kms of Beaches and the great part 56% of this was recycled. Thank you Balaji and the other CTC members for making BOTs a part of this Coastal Cleaning Drive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like a good Dev-challenge?
Show off your dev skills using JS, HTML5 & CSS.  You make the time for the full day event; we provide the problem and the food. Who knows, it might lead to some exciting opportunities at BOT VFX or help you win some amazing Gift Vouchers! Certificates will be given to all Participants.

You’re free to use your own laptop or we can provide a system if you let us know in advance.
Kickoff briefing will be at 9:30am.

 

Many may whine its hot, on this the “376^th Madras Day” we at Bot feel the city is simply Cool! Where else would we get beaches from Marina to Beasant, the Hot Iddlys and Filter-Kaapis (Coffees) or the rich heritage of Kapaleshwar, the artistic grandeur of Mahabs or extraordinary assembly lines of the worlds biggest automobile manufacturers, where else would we get the Vishwanthan Anand’s and the Amritraj’s, the kolam’s of the morning to hustle bustle “express” shopping of the evening, to some of the best film story-lines to the best possible movie theatres in India and some of the Best VFX artists in India, need we say more, oh yes where else would we have the one and only SuperStar “RAJINI”. Here’s wishing all the people out there in Love with the City, no matter where you are in the world a very happy “MADRAS DAY”.

 

Pic Credits: Google Images/S Raana Jagatheesa

When one starts up growing admiring movies and getting to make VFX or movie industry as his choice, the first and foremost dream for every aspiring artist is to make a movie one day, it seems the ultimate standard goal of all artists for time memorial. However in the daily cycle of life, work to home, home to office, family, commitments, loans, mortgages, this unique dream of every artist never see’s the light of day inspite the best of intents, passion and drive and slowly over the years as our hair starts to go grey, this dream no longer remains in the fray.

One fine day  when we walked into the Studio, we were greeted by a dream – a dream opportunity to make a film and whats more you get to do it with randomly selected colleagues from office, the entire workforce, the entire office, technical, non technical, hr, admin, finance, all into the GAME of movie making. A big bounty announced to the winners, whats bigger though was the Sudden Dawn that we are going to be living the Dream albeit in a short way, who cares, we are going be MOVIE MAKING.

So 2 months of squeezing every possible minute in the tea break, lunch break, dinner break and what not we ended up with 10 short-films from mystery to charity to history to chemistry of friendship, one after the other kept rolling, each having some standout feature which made the short film different from the other. Who said artists are not good at time management, see us for these 2 months and u would feel that the Time Management Pundits could take a lesson or two from us. Well, that’s what passion does, it makes you add the little ‘extra’ to the ordinary.

Be it the award winning film titled “Irony” or the amazingly filmed “Capture”, each one stood out from the other. Lucky were the viewers to experience an amazing dose of fresh creativity and out of the box thinking.