Prime Focus started out as a teenager’s garage operation in Mumbai and is now a global force in the post-production of films
The 2011 Academy Awards saw 10 nominations in the VFX (visual effects) category. Of these, five films (including X-Men: First Class, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and The Tree of Life) had engaged an Indian company for 2D-to-3D conversion and post-production work. Prime Focus Limited (PFL), a global visual entertainment services company, has been instrumental in altering the Hollywood perception that only US-based studios excelled in visual effects, 3D and animation. Today, 40 percent of Hollywood’s VFX and 3D work gets done in Asian countries like India, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, says a 2013 KPMG report.
According to PFL’s 2011-12 annual report, its creative services division Prime Focus World (PFW) had a 38 percent share in the global market for 3D conversion. Since the launch of View-D, its proprietary 2D-to-3D conversion arm, in 2009, it has worked on projects including Avatar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Clash of the Titans, Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace, The Twilight Saga: New Moon and World War Z.
In 2D-to-3D conversion, PFL competes with Hollywood’s Legend 3D (Alice in Wonderland and Transformers), Stereo D (Titanic and Avengers) and Rocket Science 3D (Immortals and Gulliver’s Travels). In India, though, it is the only company making inroads into the nascent 3D market. In VFX, PFL faces stiff competition from Shah Rukh Khan-owned Red Chillies Entertainment, which is warming up to Hollywood projects after Ra.One.
From a tiny studio in Mumbai, the company has more than doubled its revenues from Rs 354 crore in March 2009 to Rs 762 crore in March 2013. It has a 4,500-strong workforce in 16 offices across the world. As a media expert at a global consulting firm puts it, “It has broken international barriers in the film industry.” And its journey has been fascinating.
Humble Beginnings
PFL was founded by 18-year-old Namit Malhotra in 1995. He had dreams of becoming a filmmaker—inevitably so. His father Naresh Malhotra was a film producer; his grandfather was a cinematographer who had worked with BR Chopra.
But paucity of funds put Malhotra’s ambitions on the backburner; instead, he took a course in computer graphics. Thereafter, along with three others (Merzin Tavaria, Prakash Kurup and Huzefa Lokhandwala, who were his instructors), he set up a small editing studio in a garage next to his apartment in Khar, Mumbai. “I’m the third generation in the entertainment business,” he says.
As satellite television was taking off in India in the mid-’90s, they moved to the services side when his father initiated an equipment rental business, Video Works. For about two years, the studio was being run as a traditional proprietorship, almost like a “small shop”, and was called Video Workshop. “We did some low-budget pilot TV programmes which caught on very well,” says Malhotra. They did everything from visual effects to digital art to colour correction. “I was not always able to sell the technology but I could sell the solution,” he says. “I told my dad that I can’t be running a godown and a workshop. I wanted to leverage the creative aspects of my own business.”
And thus, at 19, he had a big business plan—and he was willing to pitch hard. Rupert Murdoch-owned Star was setting up operations in India, and Malhotra wanted to build the backend for them. “We will provide cameras and create content as well—that was my pitch to Star. I went to Hong Kong and presented the business plan. They loved it,” says Malhotra. But that partnership didn’t take off due to lack of funds.
It was in 1997 that Video Workshop gave way to Prime Focus Private Limited. “We had a Rs 2 crore debt on a Rs 75 lakh turnover at the time. We had to consolidate,” says Malhotra. The business expanded: From small-time TV shows, they started working on ads and music videos.
“We worked with MTV. We became Channel V’s in-house design team. We did advertising by day and television by night. My facility would run 24 hours and I had to buy low-cost machines because I didn’t have funds,” he says.
Dearth of money meant coming up with innovative and cost-efficient ways of work. “I was nobody in the business. But that changed very quickly. We had no real experience but our work was really edgy,” says Malhotra.
SHARP RISE
With PFT’s CLEAR technology, “Star TV has eliminated tape completely. Everything is networked across one platform. There’s not a single DVD going back and forth,”says Malhotra.
(This story appears in the 04 October, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)