BOT VFX is entering a new phase of growth—scaling across projects, teams, and ambitions. With this expansion comes the need for sharper alignment, stronger decision-making, and a culture that can evolve alongside the business. To support this transition, we convened Momentum 2025, a leadership offsite designed to reflect on the journey so far, recalibrate priorities, and prepare for what lies ahead.
At its core, Momentum 2025 focused on strengthening leadership capability, shaping the company vision, reinforcing culture, and creating clarity around the organisation’s next chapter. The offsite created space for leaders to step back from execution, examine how decisions are made, and align on how BOT VFX continues to grow—intentionally and sustainably.
Understanding Change: The Human and the System
The opening session was led by Smitha Choudhary, Professor and Head of Department at FLAME University. Her full-day workshop on organizational behavior and change management blended theory, real-world case studies, and hands-on application—tailored specifically to BOT VFX’s evolving business landscape.
Through discussions, role plays, and industry examples, leaders explored not just the mechanics of change, but the human experience behind it. The session reinforced a critical insight: meaningful change does not come from process alone. It happens when intent, culture, and leadership mindset are aligned—when decisions are precise, and leadership remains empathetic to the people driving execution.
Leadership from Within
Alongside the external workshop, BOT VFX leaders led focused discussions across critical areas of the business, grounding strategy in real operational contexts.
Discipline of Getting Things Done led by Hitesh Shah
Why Vision Matters by Sreyans Bardia
Culture Code by Deepak Bohra
Finance Acumen Led by Vipul Mehta
Six Sigma and Process Excellence sessions led by Sheeba Joy and Anoop AK
Aligning for What’s Ahead
The offsite also included collaborative sessions with Executive Producers, who shared approaches to problem-solving and process deconstruction across teams. These conversations helped bridge strategic intent with on-ground execution, fostering stronger cross-functional alignment.
Momentum 2025 concluded with leadership alignment on BOT 2026 OKRs, ensuring that future goals, execution priorities, and the organisation’s evolving identity move forward together.
Moving Forward with Clarity and Intent
Momentum 2025 was about clarity, shared language, and leadership readiness. As BOT VFX looks toward its next phase of growth and the launch of its new identity, the retreat reinforced a core belief: strong execution starts with aligned leaders, a clear vision, and a culture that scales with intent—built on collaboration and powered by value.
If you’ve been in the visual effects industry for a long, chances are you’ve come across Caine Dickinson. With over 25 years of experience and a career that’s taken him across the globe, Caine has been a sought-after Supervisor. His experience includes both live-action and feature animation films. He has worked at many of the industry majors including ILM, DNEG, MPC, Dreamworks, Blue Sky Studios, Reel FX, and Image Engine and covered locations across multiple continents As BOT’s Visual Effects Supervisor, he brings a wealth of knowledge, a diverse skill set, and a unique global perspective that continues to drive our creative ambitions forward.
Caine has worked on renowned franchises like Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Fast & Furious, X-Men, and Ice Age, demonstrating his versatility and command over a wide range of CG and VFX skills. More recently, Caine has taken on the challenge of supervising large-scale projects with crews numbering in the hundreds. His credits also include The Addams Family, Scrooge, Haunted Mansion, and Furiosa, all of which showcase his ability to manage complex projects and large teams to achieve high-end results.
Caine’s journey into the world of visual effects began back in 1996 after earning his degree in Graphic Design from Brunel University in the U.K. His first major project happened to be Star Wars: Episode I. Caine started as a Previs artist in the Art Department at Leavesden Studios in London, where he helped lay the groundwork for one of the most iconic franchises in cinema history. He also contributed to set modeling for Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and even got to complete the project at the legendary Skywalker Ranch.
In 2001, Caine made his way to MPC London, where he specialized in Previs before transitioning to Lighting. It was here that he became an integral part of the team working on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the company’s first large-scale film project. His talents didn’t go unnoticed—Caine went on to supervise the visual effects for the next two Harry Potter films, helping to bring the magical world of Hogwarts to life in ways that still captivate audiences.
Caine’s passion for animated films led him to DreamWorks Animation in 2006, where he had the opportunity to work on some of the studio’s most beloved titles. From the epic adventures of Kung Fu Panda to the swashbuckling charm of Puss in Boots, Caine’s portfolio at DreamWorks includes seven movies that have become staples of modern animation. His ability to seamlessly blend art and technology allowed these characters and stories to resonate with audiences of all ages.
With a career that’s spanned major cities and studios around the world, Caine brings a global perspective that’s essential in today’s interconnected industry. As BOT continues to expand its capabilities, Caine Dickinson adds the creative and leadership heft to BOT’s growth ambitions. Caine’s journey is a testament to the power of passion, creativity, and relentless pursuit of excellence.
It’s International Women’s day on March 8th, and most of us will pay homage to or profess our solidarity with the gender too often under-appreciated and under-valued. We will speak of our desire to achieve equality for women in all forms, from the opportunities they are afforded, to the pay they earn, to the respect they receive from men, organizations, and society as a whole. Most of us will do this with unquestionably sincere intent.
Then, as we have done before, unwittingly, we will continue with a common practice that undermines those gender equality intentions. Our day-to-day language will be littered with presumptions encased in a few small words: he and him. “If a lead has performed well, he should be …”. “An artist should always strive to build his …”. Now it’s not so much the presence of these words but the absence of alternatives where our great gender bias lies. Conversational language, or even deliberate written language, can reveal to us our own ingrained biases, even if such biases are inconsistent with our conscious values.
Failure to acknowledge the possibility of women in a role seems like a very small social infraction. And indeed it is small. It is small in its single form, but unbearably heavy when repeated by many over hundreds and thousands of times in the course of a day, week, month, and year. A drop of water cannot reshape a rock, but a waterfall over time can. By being less mindful in our communication, we unconsciously reinforce through repetition the very notion we may consciously find unacceptable. We begin to subtly reinforce that only men can be VFX artists, however preposterous that may sound when we say it out loud.
Mindfulness, not Forced Remediation
We may not mean to, but many of us violate gender inclusiveness in our language. Most startlingly, some of these infractions are by women themselves. When referring to artists or managers generically, some women will themselves use he. So is this a social ill we have to remediate through a mass re-education campaign? Do we stare down violators and call in the cancel culture police? No. Our own desire to be better at this is far more powerful than waging a guilt war. Since most of us already have the conscious intent to be more equitable, we’re better off with our own individual efforts to be more mindful in our communications. We can seek each other’s help in catching ourselves when our language falls out of line with our values. We can catch ourselves when we are adding undue weight through absent words.
The influence of BOT VFX in the VFX industry was clearly seen as several BOT team members were invited to participate on various industry panels where they shared their expertise and experience. Here are three of the recent ones.
Sreyans Bardia @ Animation Xpress
January 22, 2021 was a day of erudition for BOT’s Co-Founder & Director Sreyans Bardia as he took part in the Animation Xpress 2021 Summit “VFX and More”. Sreyans was among the panelists discussing “The VFX Service Engine: The Mainstay”.
“The VFX industry in India has long since proven itself as affordable and reliable,” Bardia reported. “The challenge before us now is to meet the momentum of global growth in demand for VFX services. It’s an incredible opportunity for us to expand the RPM artist base while we push beyond the skill sets we’ve depended on so far.”
As training institutes shift curriculum towards emerging platforms, and leading global studios are setting up their own bases in India, Sreyans observes: “It’s time to go beyond our comfort zones to develop our artists with specialized skills like compositing and virtual production. We’ve got to be purposeful about enlarging and strengthening our pool of talent.” He also shared that their clients are now turning to BOT VFX for much more complex work than in the past, which is a huge impetus for the company to nurture highly skilled artists.
In Atlanta, Head BOT Hitesh Shah shared his thoughts in a discussion entitled “The Rise of Visual EFX in Georgia” as part of an insightful panel of professionals during the March 2, 2021 meeting of the Georgia section of the Visual Effects Society. The panel, moderated by Sir Michael Hofstein, discussed the expansion of VFX activities in their state.
“Georgia is very attractive to our industry for a lot of reasons: low cost of living, variety of shooting locales, strong labor pool, and higher ed institutions, but the main reason for our industry to grow here centers around the tax incentives,” Shah observed. “So far, the state of Georgia has done a great job of staying consistent with the tax incentives for the production community. My advice to state officials: Stay steady, or do better – keep the momentum going, don’t wobble.”
The IT wing of BOT stepped onto the virtual stage as Mathew Sunil Augustine, Head of IT and Security, participated as a panelist in the Animation Xpress webinar “VFX, Post Production and the Machine” on March 19, 2021.
In the panel discussion “Scope of Technology in Post-Production” moderated by AnimationXpress.com editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, Mathew described the challenges of setting up for VFX from home during lockdown: “The work-from-home setups were a challenge. We had to be very picky about hardware and software, to stay on budget, and we had to keep the level of content security to the high standards of the industry.” He elaborated, “Our WFH solutions use zero clients, which are a lot easier to manage remotely than workstations. With that approach and a lot of teamwork, we’ve been staying busy with 90% of our artists working from home.”
Women are an integral and crucial part of the BOT VFX workforce. And to see more and more talent in what has been a quintessentially male-dominated industry for a while now, is always a point of pride for us. At BOT, women not only add to the culture and output, but also are the driving force in many ways.
So, what better time than International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month to celebrate them and get a glimpse into their journey? We spoke to a few women at BOT. Here’s what they had to say!
A Feeling Of Personal Pride
It’s a special moment for all of us when women choose to enter the arena of VFX. BOT’s favourite RJ and Prep Artist “Radio Girl” Sharmila J shares, “It feels like I’ve achieved something great! Especially when I see my name in the credits of my favorite movies and series!” And it suffices to say, that pride is rightly earned.
In general, there’s always a sense of curiosity about what compels an individual to choose a field as creatively exciting and demanding as VFX. We asked Matchmove Artist Reshma C what lured her into this industry. “I have always been curious about the VFX industry and what goes on behind the screens of cinematic works. That got my interest,” she tells us. And did she experience any roadblocks in this journey? Reshma grins, “This industry is not just about men. If you’re a woman and have the interest and curiosity, you can achieve and live your passion every day!”
And what’s it like living your passion every day at BOT VFX? Production Superstar Simran Jain chimes in, “BOT VFX is my first experience in the industry, and it’s been amazing! The culture is welcoming, friendly and above all, inspiring.” HR Executive Ramya K beams with pride over the women at BOT: “I love hearing their excitement about the opportunity to work on shows like The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones, Captain Marvel, Stranger Things … the list is endless!”
Real Roadblocks
There is still much work to be done in terms of a broader work culture at the big picture level in the industry, to make this an equitable environment for women. When we asked the team about the challenges they faced, they had poignant points to make. Matchmove and Rotomation Trainer Neetu R tells us, “I have been in the industry for 13 years, and I would be lying if I said my gender hasn’t impacted my career. Being a woman, we are automatically expected to care for our jobs AND our family. But I am grateful that BOT continues to create a seamless and empowering work culture.” HR Jr. Executive Kamna Bohra confirms this company culture: “BOT is a place that has always treated each of us equally, irrespective of gender.”
Our Admin Supergirl Divya C believes in not giving heed to the naysayers. “Discrimination comes from within, and I don’t believe in giving it any space.”
For the Love of the Game…
Despite the challenges, these ladies continued to persist and stayed true to their goal. What is it about VFX that pushed them to stick to their goals? Talent Management Exec Vinitha M echoes the general sentiment of her contemporaries, “Creativity. My earliest memory of VFX was when BOT came to our college to train us on VFX. Since then there has been no looking back.”
HR Executive Muhil Vahini bubbles over with her answer: “Excitement! Now when I’m watching movies, I’m in on the secrets of how it’s done. It feels out of this world!” Senior Prep Artist Rinki R adds, “I came for the thrill of working on Hollywood films, and I stayed for the amazing highs my work brings me every day.”
One may not easily equate working in VFX with empowerment, but Roto Artist Sangeetha D gives us a beautiful insight, “This industry has made me feel very liberating and independent about myself.” “That is one reason I never want to stop being a woman in VFX!” chimes in Prep Artist Suman Prajapati.
It’s not all about seeing one’s name in the credits roll of Hollywood films. For some, the joy and satisfaction comes from watching others work. Especially for Head of HR Shashwati Chowdhury, who says, “From my background as an Academic Head, nothing compares to the pride I feel seeing my students get credits in the movies they work so hard on. Now at BOT, I’m thrilled to see our teams doing amazing work. They make the impossible to be possible!”
BOT: Where Empowerment is in the DNA
At BOT VFX, empowering women to shatter glass ceilings and be masters of their own destiny isn’t an annual event. It’s an everyday thing, practiced until it’s a part of every team member’s DNA. This can be seen from the way the team has each other’s back. Swetha Madapuri, one of BOT’s Associate Producers muses, “It’s really amazing to see how far women have come in this industry. Personally, I owe it to Sreyans, Hetal, and Nirshid for showing me how to be a BOT superwoman!”
As BOT’s first female hire at the company’s start in 2008, VFX Executive Producer Hetal Jainhas watched over the years as quiet, demure women on staff have blossomed into strong, outspoken leaders making significant contributions. “I’ve seen this shift more and more as we’re watching strong female characters like Rey Skywalker and Wonder Woman on the screen, and knowing that Patty Jenkins and other really great women directors are at the helm of successful shows,” she observes. “It really does inspire us to reach further in the industry, especially in a field where men have stepped up first.”
Roto Artist Shenbagavalli M started as an intern in the roto department at BOT five years ago: “I came in with a fresh new mind, with no idea about how far I could go. BOT let me learn from early mistakes as a stepping stone into success as a VFX artist. Now I know I’ll never stop learning!” Production Coordinator Nandhini R’s path at BOT has taken her from her start also as a roto intern, through serving as a Roto Artist, and then moving into the production side. She’s proud to be a BOT, and she hopes to inspire more women to explore the world of VFX, saying, “The challenges of this industry are so exciting! There’s always something new to grow into, technical and artistic skills to conquer. There’s never a dull moment.”
The Next Frontier
Executive Admin Ruth Holleman gives smart advice to our ladies, “VFX is a very creative environment where women can shine, drawing on their capacities to be expressive, to observe many factors at the same time, and to manage outcomes efficiently. I see these female strengths as a set of advantages that the male-dominated VFX industry would do well to cultivate.”
VFX Executive Producer Camille Geier echoes the sentiment and adds, “I wholly agree that the best should get hired. Many times the best is a woman, but preconceived notions about a woman’s family responsibilities can get in the way. The reality is that a lot of times, women work harder because they are so good at juggling so many things. I hope to see more hiring managers let go of those falsehoods.”
Hetal affirms that BOT’s award-winning HR team is at the forefront of this issue of being supportive of women entering VFX. “BOT’s company leaders have opened these doors by recognizing women’s strengths, and by not hesitating to put them in strong positions,” she points out, “and our BOT women have been proving the wisdom of this approach with their excellence on the job.” She observes further, “The greatest strides in the industry so far have been with putting women in producer roles. The next frontier is to hire more women VFX artists, and then support their moving up to become supes and leads.”
And to that we say a loud and resounding, “Amen!” Happy Women’s Day and Women’s History Month to all the women at BOT and around the world, too!
Celebrating the Women of BOT
Visit BOT’s LinkedIn page for a video tribute to a parent’s aspiration and encouragement for their daughter to challenge, to dream and to achieve more, beautifully woven together with words, visuals, and music: Celebrating Women’s Day with Sand Art by BOT Swadesh Ranjan
For its Spring 2019 Issue, VFX Voice features “Global VFX: State of the Industry 2019”, which explores current industry trends and what they portend for the future.
BOT VFX and Hitesh Shah are featured in the article for their perspective on the challenges and opportunities in the global VFX marketplace.
“Sometimes in Life, we are never sure if an idea will work, however if we have an underlying current of conviction, which just keeps saying that take the plunge, a conviction which just makes you feel restless till you make the announcement to your colleagues and the world that this is it, and together we will have to make it work; then you know you have an Idea which is a winner”
These were perhaps the exact emotions which the Talent Management Team at BOT VFX went through before launching what was a simple idea of doubling up and using our evening snack time for some fun learning. So was born “The BOT 20min Learning Workshops” that turned out to be quite a little bit of “learning revolution” (albeit for a short one month, yet we’d take pride in calling it one).
What followed was exceptional to say the least. The BOTs (as we lovingly call ourselves) went through a month of Non-Stop Learning in the 20min workshops – a new topic of learning day after day, every day, all through the month of October till early November. We had many topics ranging from Carnatic Music to Google Cars, from learning about the Prod Pipelines to Human Anatomy, from Insurance Basics to Computer Assembling, from workshops on Sign Languages to Portrait Painting. Adding to it, we had Camera and Photography workshops and lessons on Time Management. Not to forget the fun session on cutting Comic Clips and the important session about Email Etiquettes. The list and its diversity were endless and we cannot forget the enthusiastic audience at BOT who ensured that sessions were houseful and seats were getting filled the minute registrations opened.
While some may argue saying that topics were not necessarily VFX-related (except for a few), what stood out was the collective urge of BOTs to learn and share each one’s knowledge and the desire to beat one’s own inhibitions and conquering the fear of addressing audiences.
In all of this, clearly with some extraordinary unstinted co-operation of all the BOTs, we had one more WINNER up our sleeve – “The Bot 20 min workshop”- a simple idea with powerful results. Thank you, BOTs, for supporting and making it happen.
