Hindi
Reliance MediaWorks teams up with VenSat Tech Services
MUMBAI: In its endeavour to expand its VFX, CG and animation capabilities and create a studio in Chennai that will cater to the growing needs of the Media & Entertainment industry, Reliance MediaWorks has partnered with Chennai-based VenSat Tech Services.
VenSat, a global media and entertainment company founded by Satyanarayana Mudunuri and Venkatesh Roddam, offers creative services for the international motion picture, television, home entertainment, gaming, and mobile entertainment markets.
In respect of projects related to Reliance MediaWorks, VenSat will set up a VFX, CG and Animation team in Chennai. This strategic alliance provides Reliance MediaWorks an immediate direct presence in the South India and the ability to quickly and efficiently expand its capabilities in response to growing demands.
Reliance MediaWorks CEO Anil Arjun said, “This alliance is a strategic win for Reliance MediaWorks for a number of reasons. First, VenSat gives us direct presence in Chennai, and enables us to strengthen our reach in the Southern film market.
“Second, VenSat‘s creative and technical expertise adds depth to our existing VFX, CG and Animation capabilities, offering unrivalled speed, innovation and scale to Indian filmmakers.”
Said VenSat Tech Services Pvt Ltd. executive director and co-founder Satyanarayana Mudunuri, “We are delighted to be making this strategic alliance announcement with Reliance MediaWorks which is a name to reckon with in the entertainment space globally and the timing is right.
This alliance will allow Reliance MediaWorks and VenSat to leverage and complement our combined strengths and competencies to create meaningful synergies that would augment the market place as both companies have very high operating standards.”
As a part of this strategic alliance, VenSat Founder and Executive Director Venkatesh Roddam would join the Reliance MediaWorks management team as the CEO of the entire Film and Media Services division.
While VenSat is best known for having worked on the highest grossing films in India in 2010 and 2011 namely Dabangg and Robot, Bodyguard and Ra.One, Reliance MediaWorks has recently completed work on Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, The Dirty Picture among others.
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.
