The best of the world’s technical talent is here at the biggest film bazaar, spicing up our masala stories with special effects and action. We look at Bollywood’s crossover crew

CHARLES DARBY
SPECIAL EFFECTS
Fame claim: Emmy award winner, did the special effects for Titanic, The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
India experience: Aladin and Drona
I meet Charles Darby on the sets of Aladin at Mumbai’s Mehboob Studios as he queues up for his midday meal along with the rest of the crew. Lunch is parathas, pulao, paneer, chicken curry and salad and Darby digs in with gusto. “Growing up in UK, one is used to Indian cuisine. It’s the heat now that’s getting to me,” says Darby, who has been in India for nearly a year now and heads the EyeQube Studios Private Limited after co-founding it in association with Eros International in October 2007.
Darby, an Emmy award winner and a pioneer of digital matte paintings, was almost 50-films old when he came to India to do the VFX (visual effects) for Aladin. When he got down to the making, he found he needed a bigger set-up, better facilities. Hence he set up EyeQube, ‘a cutting edge VFX platform for other Indian filmmakers’. Darby is now in India for good, though one wonders, how he convinced himself to make the shift after 10 years in Hollywood. “It took me a few months to decide. In terms of work, it’s no different from starting anything new anywhere.” Darby visited India 18 years ago on a three-month tour. “I was about 20. My first images of India then were the sights of Delhi from the back of a rickshaw at 1 in the night,” he says.

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