Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 28 (ANI/PNN): Following the success of the first edition of the Women's Creator Program in 2021, a new version was designed and crafted by Saraswathi Vani Balgam, Creative Director Dancing Atoms Studios Inc, and Shruti Verma from Unreal Engine. The program's outreach was extended across South East Asia in 2022 to empower and train women creators across the region. Incubated by Asifa India in partnership with Epic games, WCP-II saw an overflow of applicants from all parts of Asia. Epic Games along with Asifa India, Open Air Films & Perforce Software as partners provided women producers with in-depth training and mentoring across a span of 6 weeks.

Asifa India team including its Outreach & Community Services Director Sanjay Khimesara, Core Committee Members including Sesha Prasad A.R., Siva Kumar Kasetty, Ramakrishnan Vinod and R.K.Polina as well as Manager Priyanka Ajit reached out to very specific talented working professionals in ten countries & ensured the quality of participants.

After a rigorous shortlisting process, twenty-one finalists were chosen for a six-week mentorship. The creators were given complete freedom to bring their own ideas and concepts and bring them to life from pre-visualization to finalizing them with the help of real-time Engine-Unreal Engine 5.0.

Saraswathi - Vani, championed the women creators from batch one to lead the new southeast asia batch. The Mentors for the women creators program batch two included Ananya Srivastava, Gautami Vegiraju, Gayatri Rao, Hina Saiyada, Nida Arshia, Pragti Wadhwa, Rouank Magoo and Rutul Patel and Aayshman Pandey. They were skilled, talented, professionals who were helping them at all stages of their filmmaking process.

The program inspired and trained the women creators in the SEAC to adopt Realtime Production in their workflow. The participant fellows include Aadhya Raj(Mumbai), Abhirama Tejas(Mumbai), Bhavpreet Ghai Talwalkar(Mumbai), Bhumika Thakuria(Indore), Charu Tak (Bengaluru), Ellen Xie(Jakarta, Indonesia), Geethika Dayala (Hyderabad), Jessica Tan (Singapore), Meenu Shekhawat(Bengaluru), Morsal Alemi(Afghanistan), Pracheta Ahana Alam (Dhaka), Poornima Meegammana(Shrilanka), Ritika Bose(Bengaluru), Riza Qureshi(Karachi, Pakistan), Serena Dhillon(Mumbai), Smitha Pandey(Mumbai), Sri Keerthi(Challapalli), Vishakha Bardoloi(Bengaluru), Vrinda Sood(New Delhi) & Zubaida Nila(Malaysia).

The program progressed in a phased manner with a pre-visualization evaluation and shortlisting 11 candidates.

The six week intensive training program covered Animation, DDC workflows, World Building, Terrain Tools, Lighting and Post Processing, Material Editor, Sequence, Livelink and Blueprints. Epic Games Business Lead - India/SEA- Shruti Verma as well as Tech Evangelist-Mr. Arvind Neelakantan played a key role in the implementation of both editions of WCP with great commitment. Quentin Staes-Polet from Epic games, has been a strong influence and instrumental in making this programme successful.

The Open Air team, led by Wasim Khan managed all the workflow and scheduling for the candidates. Ramesh Anumakoda and his team helped with technical support. All 21 applicants were supported by free training for all the weeks. Unreal has once again proven that it believes in community building and continues to create opportunities for women in film, gaming, VFX and Animation. It was a paid programme for the women creators batch two. Gitanjali Rao, director of Bombay Rose also reviewed the ideas of the women creators. At Asifa India we believe in making an impact on the people around us.

Please enjoy the films created by Women creators batch 1 and batch 2.

Batch One - shorts - Blog-

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/see-the-top-shorts-from-india-s-women-creators-program

Batch Two-shorts- Blog

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/see-the-top-short-films-from-the-women-creators-program-2022

Batch- Two Films on Vimeo-

https://vimeo.com/showcase/9736263

All the Women Creators from Batch two will share their voices and the making of their projects on 28th September 2022, at 7.00 pm India time.

Please register on https://tinyurl.com/wcpbatch2 and celebrate the films of the women creators programme

The next steps are to collaborate with studios and create an impact.

ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film d'Animation) is a UNESCO supported NGO founded in 1960 in France. With its footprints in France, USA, Australia, China, UK, Japan and 50+ other locations, ASIFA is a non-profit corporation devoted to cultivating and promoting the art, craft and profession of Animation.

Link- www.asifa.net, www.iadasifa.net

Devoted to developing film animation both as an art and also as an effective means of communication. It has been actively working since 22yrs towards the cause of knowledge sharing and promoting animation within India, building a strong sense of community. ASIFA INDIA organizes and celebrates the International Animation Day festival across India to recognize the art of animation. The chapter also recognizes the best animation in India through the ASIFA India Awards of Excellence. Asifa India has become the voice of artists that promotes opportunities in animation all around the world. It conducts Monthly CGMeetup with top of the chart artists from across all geographies. Students & Professionals could submit free entries on https://filmfreeway.com/asifaiad for Awards of Excellence-2022 till 30.09.2022. Asifa India recently launched the poster of IAD '22 and plans to organize International Animation Day during November & December 2022 at Indore, Hyderabad & 10 other cities.

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