The future is here

What is common between films like Chicago, Shanghai Knights, Daredevil, Timeline, Torque, The Last Samurai, Gangs of New York, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Final Destination? Chetan Deshmukh.
In his four years in Hollywood, this Puneite has worked as animator, lighting artiste, modeling artiste, and compositor at various animation and visual effects studios.By winning personal credit for his films, Chetan has definitely made a name for himself.
Now, the 30-year-old is a part of a 20 judge panel chosen from all over the world to judge the Blue Mars Virtual Art Competition. What is Blue Mars? It is similar to Second Life (a virtual world where users meet other users or ���residents���, socialise, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another), but is said to offer a lot more to the user in terms of breathtakingly realistic avatars and high end graphics, to name just a few of the features.
Chetan is predictably quite excited about being on the panel that boasts a stellar line-up of artistes from around the world. Jeffrey Baksinski who, with his visual effects artistry has brought alive many a film like True Lies, Titanic, X-men, Spiderman 2, and Mr & Mrs Smith, and 18 more such luminaries are on the panel.
Chetan remarks humbly, ���I consider myself honoured and privileged to be one of the judges along with the stalwarts from the industry.���
Seized by the passion for animation and digital creation very early in life, Chetan sought his inspiration and guidance from Disney features and books.
Talking about his pursuit of his passion, he says, ���I was getting decent at cel animation with the help of a few senior local artistes. After three years, I got bitten by the digital bug when my dad bought me a Commodore Amiga 4000 workstation, and a new world opened up for me. I was obsessed with animation and digital image creation.��� In 1998, he dropped out of engineering school and decided to make a career in animation. A year later, without any tutoring, he got into the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In 2000, he graduated from UCLA, majoring in Animation and Visual Effects. For this Puneite, it was a dream come true when Hollywood came calling.
His passion for innovation in animation and visual effects drove him to set up his own animation studio back home. Chetan has great faith in the future of digital design.
He comments, ���Computer graphics is a new technology compared to conventional artistic mediums. It is still evolving. Sometimes, you can���t express your creation fully since there are so many limitations. We need to develop our system constantly using cutting edge technology.��� What the technology can deliver we have seen so often. Remember Shanghai Nights?