Kumar Chandrasekaran, Head of Operations at Sanraa Media

Mr. Chandrasekaran has been Head of Operations at Sanraa Media since July 2009. He has been a Senior Faculty Member at Whistling Woods International Educational Institute, and Executive Producer at Sanraa Software. His profile includes positions as Technical Director at Anirights Infomedia, 3-D Technical Head at India Heritage Foundation, Senior Modeling and Animation In charge at JadooWorks, Manager of Visual Effects Ceeyes Hyderabad, and Animator at Pentafour Software.

CG Today : Mr. Chandrasekaran, welcome to CG Today. It is indeed our pleasure to speak with you.

Kumar : Thank you the pleasure is mine.

CG Today : Sanraa Media, at which you are Head of Operations, opened a new state-of-the-art facility which is unique, in that it is said to be the only studio offering the services of a production house, visual effects studio and design firm all rolled in one. Tell us about this new building.

Kumar : I wouldn’t say that we are the only studio offering such diverse services, today the Indian animation industry has grown and there are more than a few capable studios around.

Here in Sanraa our main focus is to ensure that we contribute effectively on all content that we create in house. Be it IPs or out sourced content, we ensure that we creatively and technically contribute to all stages of the production cycle with a core focus on adding value to the storytelling. We have also developed a very efficient and successful pipeline along with building an extremely competent team which prides itself in delivering world class content on time.

You can read more about Sanraa at http://www.sanraamedia.com

CG Today : Sanraa Media and Endemol, UK, PLC have collaborated on a $2.74 million, 3-D animated series, The 99. Can you fill us in on this project?

Kumar : The 99 is an extremely exciting show to be working on (Full HD 26 episodes of 22 mins each). The 99 was and is a very well received and successful comic book before being made into an animated series. The storylines have been written by some of the best Hollywood action writers available and features some fantastic Super Hero action, which I have always been an avid fan of.

The 99 comic is created by Teshkeel while the animated series is jointly produced by Teshkeel, Endemol UK and Sanraa Media Ltd.

You can read further about the show here at http://www.the99.org

You can view the trailer here

CG Today : Your studio continues to seek opportunities to expand and increase acquisitions. This company is an up-and-coming force to be reckoned with, is it not?

Kumar : Definitely. We are a young and capable team, with a deliberate mix of experienced and fresh minds, who take immense confidence from all the deliveries being completed and the positive responses on each project from varied global audiences. We are also headed by a young team of directors in Mr.Sukumar Subramanian and Ms.Uma Karthikeyan and have an extremely dependable support from my Creative Head, Mr.Riash Shanawaz . Most importantly we have been lucky to have an extremely energetic and talented team. Coupled with a good infrastructure, it definitely makes us as an extremely proficient studio which we continuously strive to improve further.

On the acquisition front the management is working on completing a few strategic tie ups mainly in Europe and US. I tend to purely concentrate and focus on completing timely deliveries.

CG Today : You were a senior faculty member at Whistling Woods International Institute. What did you teach at this school?

Kumar : I mainly mentored the final semester students in the Art and Technique of Animation Diploma course there. In the process I helped them complete their graduation in short films. I enjoyed conducting a few master classes on all key areas of production and getting the students as production-ready as possible. This would involve technical areas and importantly I would try to impart non technical knowledge as well, like project effort estimation, management, copyrights, work ethics etc.

CG Today : From 2005 to 2006 you were 3-D Technical Head at the India Heritage Foundation. Tell us about your work there.

Kumar : We started the Krishna project in 3D at the time. My main challenge was to help design a 3D version of Krishna (along with the Creative Director) and also help put a team and pipeline together which would all go hand in hand in creating a quality output. A lot of research and development went into this and it was fantastic interacting with the Heritage Foundation learning a lot about the said subject in the process from them. I would really like to thank India Heritage Foundation and Mr.Ashish Kulkarni for providing me and the team a fantastic opportunity.

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