MAM
Rentrak inks deal with India’s Carnival Cinemas for box office measurement
MUMBAI: Box office measurement body Rentrak is slowly expanding its footprint in India, where until now box office numbers haven’t had a systematic tracking system. Rentrak, which recently inked a deal with India’s Cinepolis multiplex chain, has now joined hands with the Mumbai based Carnival Cinemas.
Rentrak will implement its box office reporting system across Carinval Cinemas properties.
Carnival Cinemas with 300 screens currently ranks as India’s third-largest exhibition chain after PVR and Inox. The company plans to increase its screen count to more than 1,000 screens across India by 2017, including theaters in small cities throughout South India.
It may be recalled that last year Carnival Cinemas acquired Big Cinemas, which was the multiplex business of Reliance Mediaworks.
“We are excited to expand our measurement in India and work with Carnival Cinemas as they continue to become one of the top players in the market. Rentrak is committed to expanding our box office measurement throughout India to help their film production be more transparent,” said Rentrak president of global movie services Ron Giambra.
“We are delighted to partner with Rentrak, the global leaders in box office measurement to herald an era of precise box office information in the Indian movie industry. Carnival, while striving to provide the best possible movie watching experience to its viewers, also strives to uphold the global best practices in all aspects of film exhibition. I am sure that our synergy will add value to the industry as a whole,” added Carnival CEO Group P.V Sunil.
Rentrak has been measuring box office receipts in India since October 2014. The first film it tracked was Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan’s PK, which recently became the country’s highest-grossing film of all time.
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
