Hindi
Avitel to do VFX, animation for 14 Hindi films
MUMBAI: With the Bollywood-animation synergy heating up, many animation studios are gaining momentum in the cinema space. Avitel Post Studioz Ltd, which last did animation and VFX for Cash and Superstar, has a lineup of 14 films in its kitty.
Their list of projects includes Heroes, God Tussi Great Ho, EMI, Loot, Khel Khel Main, Mumbai Chakachak, Roshan, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Subway, Kissan, Mr and Mrs Khanna, Partner 2, Zindagi Tere Naam and an untitled film being produced by Sameer Karnik.
While most of the films will have VFX and DI, Rumi Jaffery‘s God Tussi Great Ho, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan and Priyanka Chopra, will witness 48 minutes of computer graphics.
Rishi Jain of Avitel says, “The response to our work has motivated us to take up more projects. We plan to do at least 10 films per month.”
The company applies a fixed package for every film and charges the studio rates.
Avitel had locked in a three-year contract with Sunny Deol‘s Sunny Super Sound, but apparently that was called off. “Everything was finalised but we called it quits at the last minute,” adds Jain.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
