New Delhi: HBO has started airing the sixth season of its most watched show, ‘Game Of Thrones’. The GOT fever has caught up with a large section of India’s population. For that GOT viewing population, we have good news. You would be proud to know that the dragons of Khaleesi are created by an Indian company.
An Indian subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Prana Studios created the three fire-breathing beasts in the fifth season. The dragons of Westeros were developed at a studio in Goregaon, Mumbai.
The CEO of Prana Studios, Arish Fyzee said that the instructions given to the team was clear- don’t develop just creatures, create characters. He told a leading daily, “The producers wanted creatures that had a level of sophistication very high for any television series, and very realistic and engaging as the characters of creatures.”
Fyzee founded Prana Studios in 2003 along with Kristin Dornig and Pankaj Gunsagar. The company is backed by investors like Anand Mahindra and Mukesh Ambani. Fyzee who was born and brought up in Mumbai got his training in Canada and New York. Speaking about his love for the subcontinent he said, “I am an Indian, so India was always a part of our plan.”
Prana’s Mumbai outlet used almost 800 personnel to create the dragons. The team included visual artists, animators, light and sound experts and technology specialists. They also created Drogon, the dragon who rescues Daenerys Targaryen in the second last episode of the fifth season of ‘Game of Thrones’.
Fyzee could have done the ‘big dragon act’ sans its Mumbai leg. So why did he choose the Indian division. Telling about it he said, “India has a lot of raw talent that could be really developed. And then we could create a studio where a wide variety of projects can be created. In the US, due to the size of studios, they tend to specialise in only one kind of digital work.”
The studio has recreated Calcutta and Bombay of yesteryear for two period Bollywood dramas – ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshi’ and ‘Bombay Velvet’.
The team is confident to be weaving some more magic in Game Of Thrones. “We expect to be doing more with Game of Thrones. There are more new creatures coming,” said Fyzee.
