What do Life of Pi, Ra.One, Krrish 3, Eega, Robot and Chhota Bheem have in common? While they have been created by reputable animation and visual effects companies, the teams that have worked on these projects have been trained at MAAC

Imagine a world where video game character comes alive, humanoid machines hatch diabolical plans, a common housefly avenges his death and protects his lady love and a little boy battles a live tiger and a rough sea. These are stories of phantasmagoria that require not just an imagination that is wild and vivid, but also technical discipline to hone your creativity and skills to bring your imagination to life, on screen.

MAAC (Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics) Koramangala – vertical of Aptech Limited - is a leading training Centre of MAAC located near Sony world signal Koramangala, Bangalore. The media and entertainment sphere is the only non-ephemeral Industry that offers a wide number of opportunities for students with a flair for creativity and in the past five years, MAAC Koramangala has trained more than 4000 students in the field of animation, gaming and visual effects (VFX).

For their students to stay on par with standards that are comparable internationally, the MAAC infrastructure and campus facilities are regularly upgraded. The institute has Chroma shoot floors, state of the art digital SLR cameras for still and motion capture, high performance computers equipped with the best graphic accelerator cards, WACOM Tablets, TFT Monitors, projectors, pre-production areas and of course, classrooms. This simulates an almost real-like, ‘on-the-job’ environment for students, akin to global animation and VFX Studios. It is preparatory compliances of this sort that has led to several MAAC Students winning awards at prestigious film making competition across India.

For MAAC, the focus is not only on training their students in the best possible manner. The whole purpose is to ensure that students get to pursue it as flourishing career. With advances in technology, audience appetite for breathtaking effects and animation is high. There is high demand for creative and competent individuals in the animation and VFX industry. The career courses at MAAC have been planned to train individuals who can ably satisfy these specialist needs of the industry.

MAAC trains their students on diverse facets. Courses include training in multimedia, web design, graphic design, animation, character designer, modeller, animator, storyboard artists, vfx artists, director

MAAC has developed the AD3D Edge and ADVFX course, incorporating the needs of the industry, imparting basic as well as advanced skills while kindling the imagination of students. Spread over a period of 24 months, these courses focus on the finer points of skills and provide students with in depth training, making them industry ready. Students are trained on diverse facets and can look for careers as multimedia designers, web designers, graphic designers, animation specialists, character designers, modellers, animators, storyboard artists, Visual Effects Artists, etc.. MAAC Students have been placed in leading studios and media houses of the country such as Prana, Prime Focus, Red Chillies, Zee News, Snipple, Makuta, Green Gold, NDTV, Pixion and more.

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Very much the man in the picture

Shajan Samuel
Sr. Vice President MAAC

An IIM Kolkata alumnus, Shajan Samuel currently works as the senior vice president at MAAC. Having being the head of two leading tyre manufacturing brands in India at an early age, Samuel launched a media and entertainment MBA course in association with Bollywood director Subhash Ghai backed Whistling Woods. Samuel was previously involved with IIJT-Team Lease as a member of the leadership team. He was also nominated for the Namma Bengaluru foundation awards in 2013.

Speaking about MAAC, Samuel said, “We leave no stone unturned in providing the best facilities for our students. People who get trained at MAAC go on to join major studios, media, animation and visual effects companies and corporations and become parts of teams that have brought several movies and characters to life.” Emphasising that apart from the facilities, the faculty at MAAC is equally responsible for their students’ success, Samuel said, “State of the art equipment and the best facilities are important, but it’s our faculty that give key inputs and impart techniques to help our students succeed in their chosen field.”

While MAAC students have contributed to almost every movie that has required special effects, visual effects or animation, we asked Samuel which is his favourite movie and character. He said, “The students of MAAC have created their own movies called Cricket X and Superheroes. Those are my favourites.”

Samuel is also a public speaker, columnist and advisor to a leading PE firm. When he has some time for himself, he likes writing poetry and has participated in three ‘Kavi Samelans’. He has started work on his book ‘The Smart Sales Person’ and hopes to complete and publish it by 2015.