What does RaagRang — A Visualization of Indian Classical Music have in common with the Oscar-winning animated superhero film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse?
Nothing, save CGI-artist Dipankar Goswamy. This unassuming, visual effects artist, who lives in Los Angeles, is the brains behind much of the compelling CGI (computer-generated imaging)-enabled special effects of films such as Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, Kingsman the Golden Circle, Amazing Spiderman 2, Oz – the Great and Powerful, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1 and 2, Angry Birds 2, and Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2.
Thanks to the skill with which he wields a paintbrush, Goswamy has, through the projections of his atmospheric paintings of the performances of great Indian classical musicians, accompanied by recordings of their music, tried to recreate the multi-sensory experience of baithaks in RaagRang.
Goswamy was in town earlier this year for the presentation of RaagRang at various venues in India including events at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata Centre for Creativity and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
It was also shown last month at the spring concert of Atma under the aegis of the Music Circle to celebrate Indian classical music in California.
Goswamy’s love of north Indian classical music and his mastery of painting can be attributed to his father’s daily ritual of playing LPs of great masters while they were growing up in Munger, Bihar, and the encouragement and support he offered his son to take up the paintbrush when he was around 12.
His father was a physics professor at Raja Deoki Nandan and Diamond Jubilee College in Munger, and Goswamy remembers with a chuckle the “dark comedy” of three-month-long periods of loadshedding.
He and his younger sister were compelled to retreat to the terrace where they could study for their exams by the generator-powered radiance of neighbouring buildings.
Even after he joined the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, in 1980, to study mechanical engineering, Goswamy never gave up his practice of painting. He was called upon to create giant paintings and 20ft-high sculptures for the cultural fest, Oasis, that attracted students from all over India, the “insane” academic pressure, notwithstanding.
Goswamy pasted together 32 A1 sheets to prepare the ground for these paintings. He worked tirelessly for three months on these. Moreover, he had taken up artwork as one of his elective subjects. By this time he had realised that he was interested in art or related fields.
Goswamy was fortunate enough to have Aditya Pratap Mathur, now professor emeritus, department of computer science, Purdue University, as one of his teachers. Mathur had asked Goswamy to take up computer graphics, in a nascent stage then.
Mathur felt Goswamy would excel in it because of his dual skill set — an engineer with a flair for art. Goswamy, however, never studied computer science.
He was “desperate” to become an artist (he had even tried his luck at the JJ School of Art in Mumbai), and in the last semester, as part of his industrial training, he chose to work at a firm in Kolkata so that he could be trained under Manas Choudhury, whose forte was drawing animals.
Goswamy spent his weekends at the zoo to do “live” drawing, at a cowshed under a bridge and at the mounted police stable. After switching jobs, he joined the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay, to learn visual communication.
“But the fact is that CGI was in its infancy in India and there was very minimal educational opportunity at IDC, IIT in the field of computer graphics. However, IDC gave a thorough grounding in the principles of design,” says Goswamy, who had topped the two-year course.
Thereafter, he joined Computer Graphiti (Bombay) and in 1988-89 he had the opportunity to work under Ram Mohan (1931-2019), known as the father of Indian animation. The company was “very generous” and Goswamy was allowed to work under Ram Mohan, whom he describes as a “father figure” and a “guiding light”, three times a week.
He quit Computer Graphiti (Bombay) as he was looking for independence by doing visuals for ad agencies and magazines. He worked under Shyam Benegal too.
“Computer graphic equipment were insanely expensive then,” says Goswamy, and by that time he had realised that “if I want to do serious work I would have to go to the US”.
Jumbo Electronic, which was the largest distributor of Sony equipment in Europe and Asia and was based in Dubai, was Goswamy’s next employer for three-and-a-half years. It had state-of-the-art equipment but he thought it was “not challenging enough”.
Goswamy got a residency card in just six months to Canada in 1999 and was immediately hired by C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, a Canadian film and television computer animation special effects studio based in Toronto. The software used was the well-known Houdini and “it was miles ahead of India and Dubai”, says Goswamy. Its first animated film was The Wild.
Goswamy explains that big studios have a “plethora” of software developers to make custom-made software. To produce a particularly complex visual effects movie easily, 300 people could work on it. Goswamy was responsible for effects and simulation work like water, explosions, destruction as well as designing hair and feathers for many animated characters, and his drawing skills helped him in a “roundabout way”.
He stresses: “Your film will look as good as the money pumped in. In India they tend to stint on the budget”.
Goswamy has been associated with a string of blockbusters such as the “highly stylised” Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and he created the digital doubles of Will Smith and Charlize Theron for Hancock among other Hollywood stars.
Once he was hired by Sony Pictures Imageworks in 2006, Goswami’s career reached its apogee with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse film bagging 44 awards. Now it has reached cult status. Goswamy was credited as FxLead on this prestigious film.
His skills continue to add visual effects to live action and animated films. The synergy between Goswamy’s deep understanding of computer graphics and his painterly imagination works miracles onscreen.
