BOT heated up the 2021 summer streaming season with VFX work on the Netflix Fear Street trilogy: Part One – 1994, Part Two – 1978, and Part Three – 1666. The trilogy is inspired by the teenage horror fiction series written by American author R. L. Stine.
Creative inspiration for the trilogy came from director Leigh Janiak, a longtime Fear Street fan. She tapped BOT’s deep bench for not just the basic VFX tasks, but also complex challenges like “can’t do that on set” fixes, and “wouldn’t that be cool” enhancements to the raw footage.
“When we started with Fear Street, we were expecting maybe 50 shots, but by the time we were done, it had exploded to over 700! So you could say we had a blast working on this show,” quipped Hetal Jain, BOT VFX Executive Producer. “The creative needs ended up being much more technically complex than we had anticipated, and some of the deadlines were really tough – especially with having to work from home – but our team loved stepping up to these challenges. Working so closely with Leigh and her team was scary fun.”
Our team of artists was led by Sean Pollack, VFX Supervisor for BOT’s work on Fear Street. “Leigh had a big vision for these stories. It pushed our artists to tap into their deepest wells of creativity and capacity.”
First we cleaned things up: ‘whoops’ removals, day-for-night, adding shadows, and the like. Then BOT used CG dazzle to craft a lot of things that look real, but in real life, you just can’t do during filming. We directed smoke to follow the direction of an invisible wind. We turned floppy rubber prop knives to glinting steel. We added a menacing CG lobster. We set a wall full of 20+ clocks to identical times. We made intact arms, hands, and legs look like they had been severed … obviously, you can’t do that on set!
But we didn’t stop there. Lastly, as the final icing on the freaky cake, the team created “wouldn’t it be cool” drama-enhancing tweaks: adding damage to dummies and doors, making explosions bigger, and layering more signs of struggle onto unfortunate victims who didn’t look dead enough. We tied people up with CG coiled phone cords. We added a lot of CG blood (bleeding noses, pools of blood, blood splatters … you get the idea). Deeper shadows and lightning flashes also amped up the creepy factor.
“Our paint and comp team ‘killed it’ with extensive set cleanup and impossible super slow mos that required us to stretch the character motion from a few frames into seconds-long shots. The team’s patience and attention to detail is unmatched, and it shows in the work,” confirms Pollack. “We found a way to handle everything the director’s creative mind thought up. We thoroughly enjoyed everyone involved and can’t wait to do the next project with Leigh and her team!”
BOT VFX is proud to announce that team member Bala Morarji has successfully completed the Unreal Fellowship program with Epic Games.
Bala Morarji, a 3D Supervisor at BOT VFX, was selected to join a recent cohort in the Unreal Fellowship for individuals, a very selective training course where the students spend ten hours a day for a month mastering the intricacies of Epic Unreal Engine.
What follows is an insider view into this experience, drawn from a recent conversation that I (Ramya K of BOT’s Talent Management team) had with Bala.
As we both grab our cups of coffee for a tête-à-tête on his prestigious Unreal Fellowship, Bala Morarji grins over his coffee cup, clearly excited to share his story.
And so it begins
I was one of 100 fellows taking the Unreal Fellowship classes at the same time. We were divided into 5 groups of 20 people each, and each group had a mentor. And that’s how all this started! One of the greatest benefits of being in this group is working alongside other VFX artists from around the world. And even after the classes are over, the group and the Unreal mentors will keep interacting and learning together.
The capabilities of Unreal are vast, and touch on all departments. This was a major time to learn the other side of Unreal – how flows are created, what goes on behind the behind-the-scenes. The key takeaways were vast. Getting this understanding of the Unreal mechanism was mind-blowing!
Scope of the Fellowship training
There was so much covered! Key areas were the background of what has been done in the VFX industry and what the future holds for the VFX industry, how one can work with texture & lighting with ease, motion capture animation, and content creation. Virtual Production, however, was the main focus. While the process was already familiar to all, this gave an in-depth knowledge of the working process and how the workflow is managed.
On balancing work-life-study
Oh it wasn’t easy, but I enjoyed the process through and through. I’m not sure I could have done this without the support of my team. I still would do about 4 to 5 hours of BOT work in the daytime, and then the Unreal sessions were completely during the nighttime.
On how the classes went
We just didn’t have theory sessions, we had demo classes, practice sessions, lab sessions, and mentor sessions. There was so much for us to learn and grasp in a short period of time. We were given projects to work on, and sessions based on how we were performing in the projects.
Our sessions generally started from a basic level, moved on to the intermediate level, and then we moved on to the final level. Each teaching session lasted about three hours, and then the fellows worked independently on their projects. For my part, I would also spend 1 hour each day to review what we had learned. By the end of week, we would have the one-on-one with our assigned mentors. This way, we never had to start a fresh week with doubts in our heads.
Bala’s take on VP
I wouldn’t give a hands-down “yes” to Virtual Production. And it’s not as easy as it sounds. All over the world, there are about a 100 to 120 setups of Virtual Production. In general, VP can be done in three ways – you either have LED or Green Screen or VCAM. In the current scenario, it would be ideal to work on content to be used on LED screens, with compositing that will be used for Virtual Production. Once VP is adopted, work is expected to become much easier.
Do we have cons with VP?
Sometimes, close up shots cannot be kept. The LED lights might become visible when you do that. Some cinematographers do not like the set up. For shooting snow clad shots, some become creative only when you are in the natural setup. VP might make some people lose their creativity, but this would not be the case for all.
So, what are the pros of VP?
Unreal had only been in the gaming space till the last 2 to 3 years when they moved into the VFX space. With Unreal, you have the advantage of seeing the output right from your home. Given the pandemic, this is a great time to make use of this software. The shooting location gets to have fewer people, which is especially important right now. Also, Unreal software is not an outsource – meaning that it is freely downloadable and customizable. So what I download and customize, can be used only by me for my shots.
Where else can we use Unreal?
That would completely be based upon studios and their budgets. Previs is something that can be done. The Indian VFX community has already moved into Previs, or Techvis depending upon their budgets. Roto, prep, and matchmove have been the sustenance quotient for India so far, but with Unreal, collaborative projects can be taken up and this will help the CG department enhance itself.
What does all this mean to you?
This (he says with a glint in his eyes) is my starting point. I now have all the ground materials and my learning has just started. This one month of training in the Fellowship was a huge foundation and I have a basic understanding of what Unreal software can do. How I enhance it is something that completely lies with me. I intend to enhance my knowledge and keep taking training sessions on the Unreal Engine!
Zameer’s take on Unreal @ BOT
Just as we take our first sip of coffee, Zameer Hussain, BOT’s Creative Head, joins our small party with his own cup of coffee. We ask him what this means to the company: “BOT is gearing up with making use of Unreal for its regular CG needs and for engagement with our clients for assisting on virtual production. Along with Bala, who has a head start with his Unreal fellowship training, we have also enrolled 15 artists going through hands-on training sessions from Unreal,” he proudly reports.
“We are pretty impressed with the options Unreal gives as ready-to-use libraries from the marketplace and customizable options for the same. There’s a lot to explore,” Zameer concludes, as we empty our coffee mugs, sanitize our hands and leave for home, confident of a fascinating future in the brave new world of virtual production.
Over a hundred years ago, Mercedes-Benz invented the first van, and today they are the world’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer. Honoring this impressive history, MB and Element E Filmproduktion partnered with BOT VFX to showcase the impressive variety of tasks that Mercedes-Benz vans can do.
The commercial takes place in a very expansive setting filmed with multiple camera and drone angles. The clients needed set extension and CG enhancements to road, terrain, mountains and sky in 4K resolution.
Faced with this ambitious scope, the BOTs got busy creating a highly detailed 3D environment for this massive set extension:
The CG department took the lead with creating the illusion of an enormous wide-open untouched space, adding elements for replacements of terrain, mountains, and sky. Even more challenging were the CG elements for recreating the road.
The highly detailed texturing required to clean and extend the road while maintaining the plate details was just one of the complex tasks that the 3D department tackled, along with camera tracking and object tracking for both extreme close-ups and wide-angle shots.
BOT’s compositing artists wrapped it up with a bow by creating the space using 2.5D camera projections, lighting, color correction, creating the tone, and stitching CG into the original plates.
The subtleties of the work done by BOT focus the advertisement clearly on the vans themselves. CG Supervisor Persie Jalgaonwala observed, “We created an environment that keeps attention on the vans. You don’t even see the VFX. Some of the best visual effects are happening when you don’t even notice that there are any visual effects.”
The influence of BOT VFX in the VFX industry was clearly seen as several BOT team members were invited to participate on various industry panels where they shared their expertise and experience. Here are three of the recent ones.
Sreyans Bardia @ Animation Xpress
January 22, 2021 was a day of erudition for BOT’s Co-Founder & Director Sreyans Bardia as he took part in the Animation Xpress 2021 Summit “VFX and More”. Sreyans was among the panelists discussing “The VFX Service Engine: The Mainstay”.
“The VFX industry in India has long since proven itself as affordable and reliable,” Bardia reported. “The challenge before us now is to meet the momentum of global growth in demand for VFX services. It’s an incredible opportunity for us to expand the RPM artist base while we push beyond the skill sets we’ve depended on so far.”
As training institutes shift curriculum towards emerging platforms, and leading global studios are setting up their own bases in India, Sreyans observes: “It’s time to go beyond our comfort zones to develop our artists with specialized skills like compositing and virtual production. We’ve got to be purposeful about enlarging and strengthening our pool of talent.” He also shared that their clients are now turning to BOT VFX for much more complex work than in the past, which is a huge impetus for the company to nurture highly skilled artists.
In Atlanta, Head BOT Hitesh Shah shared his thoughts in a discussion entitled “The Rise of Visual EFX in Georgia” as part of an insightful panel of professionals during the March 2, 2021 meeting of the Georgia section of the Visual Effects Society. The panel, moderated by Sir Michael Hofstein, discussed the expansion of VFX activities in their state.
“Georgia is very attractive to our industry for a lot of reasons: low cost of living, variety of shooting locales, strong labor pool, and higher ed institutions, but the main reason for our industry to grow here centers around the tax incentives,” Shah observed. “So far, the state of Georgia has done a great job of staying consistent with the tax incentives for the production community. My advice to state officials: Stay steady, or do better – keep the momentum going, don’t wobble.”
The IT wing of BOT stepped onto the virtual stage as Mathew Sunil Augustine, Head of IT and Security, participated as a panelist in the Animation Xpress webinar “VFX, Post Production and the Machine” on March 19, 2021.
In the panel discussion “Scope of Technology in Post-Production” moderated by AnimationXpress.com editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, Mathew described the challenges of setting up for VFX from home during lockdown: “The work-from-home setups were a challenge. We had to be very picky about hardware and software, to stay on budget, and we had to keep the level of content security to the high standards of the industry.” He elaborated, “Our WFH solutions use zero clients, which are a lot easier to manage remotely than workstations. With that approach and a lot of teamwork, we’ve been staying busy with 90% of our artists working from home.”
Women are an integral and crucial part of the BOT VFX workforce. And to see more and more talent in what has been a quintessentially male-dominated industry for a while now, is always a point of pride for us. At BOT, women not only add to the culture and output, but also are the driving force in many ways.
So, what better time than International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month to celebrate them and get a glimpse into their journey? We spoke to a few women at BOT. Here’s what they had to say!
A Feeling Of Personal Pride
It’s a special moment for all of us when women choose to enter the arena of VFX. BOT’s favourite RJ and Prep Artist “Radio Girl” Sharmila J shares, “It feels like I’ve achieved something great! Especially when I see my name in the credits of my favorite movies and series!” And it suffices to say, that pride is rightly earned.
In general, there’s always a sense of curiosity about what compels an individual to choose a field as creatively exciting and demanding as VFX. We asked Matchmove Artist Reshma C what lured her into this industry. “I have always been curious about the VFX industry and what goes on behind the screens of cinematic works. That got my interest,” she tells us. And did she experience any roadblocks in this journey? Reshma grins, “This industry is not just about men. If you’re a woman and have the interest and curiosity, you can achieve and live your passion every day!”
And what’s it like living your passion every day at BOT VFX? Production Superstar Simran Jain chimes in, “BOT VFX is my first experience in the industry, and it’s been amazing! The culture is welcoming, friendly and above all, inspiring.” HR Executive Ramya K beams with pride over the women at BOT: “I love hearing their excitement about the opportunity to work on shows like The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones, Captain Marvel, Stranger Things … the list is endless!”
Real Roadblocks
There is still much work to be done in terms of a broader work culture at the big picture level in the industry, to make this an equitable environment for women. When we asked the team about the challenges they faced, they had poignant points to make. Matchmove and Rotomation Trainer Neetu R tells us, “I have been in the industry for 13 years, and I would be lying if I said my gender hasn’t impacted my career. Being a woman, we are automatically expected to care for our jobs AND our family. But I am grateful that BOT continues to create a seamless and empowering work culture.” HR Jr. Executive Kamna Bohra confirms this company culture: “BOT is a place that has always treated each of us equally, irrespective of gender.”
Our Admin Supergirl Divya C believes in not giving heed to the naysayers. “Discrimination comes from within, and I don’t believe in giving it any space.”
For the Love of the Game…
Despite the challenges, these ladies continued to persist and stayed true to their goal. What is it about VFX that pushed them to stick to their goals? Talent Management Exec Vinitha M echoes the general sentiment of her contemporaries, “Creativity. My earliest memory of VFX was when BOT came to our college to train us on VFX. Since then there has been no looking back.”
HR Executive Muhil Vahini bubbles over with her answer: “Excitement! Now when I’m watching movies, I’m in on the secrets of how it’s done. It feels out of this world!” Senior Prep Artist Rinki R adds, “I came for the thrill of working on Hollywood films, and I stayed for the amazing highs my work brings me every day.”
One may not easily equate working in VFX with empowerment, but Roto Artist Sangeetha D gives us a beautiful insight, “This industry has made me feel very liberating and independent about myself.” “That is one reason I never want to stop being a woman in VFX!” chimes in Prep Artist Suman Prajapati.
It’s not all about seeing one’s name in the credits roll of Hollywood films. For some, the joy and satisfaction comes from watching others work. Especially for Head of HR Shashwati Chowdhury, who says, “From my background as an Academic Head, nothing compares to the pride I feel seeing my students get credits in the movies they work so hard on. Now at BOT, I’m thrilled to see our teams doing amazing work. They make the impossible to be possible!”
BOT: Where Empowerment is in the DNA
At BOT VFX, empowering women to shatter glass ceilings and be masters of their own destiny isn’t an annual event. It’s an everyday thing, practiced until it’s a part of every team member’s DNA. This can be seen from the way the team has each other’s back. Swetha Madapuri, one of BOT’s Associate Producers muses, “It’s really amazing to see how far women have come in this industry. Personally, I owe it to Sreyans, Hetal, and Nirshid for showing me how to be a BOT superwoman!”
As BOT’s first female hire at the company’s start in 2008, VFX Executive Producer Hetal Jainhas watched over the years as quiet, demure women on staff have blossomed into strong, outspoken leaders making significant contributions. “I’ve seen this shift more and more as we’re watching strong female characters like Rey Skywalker and Wonder Woman on the screen, and knowing that Patty Jenkins and other really great women directors are at the helm of successful shows,” she observes. “It really does inspire us to reach further in the industry, especially in a field where men have stepped up first.”
Roto Artist Shenbagavalli M started as an intern in the roto department at BOT five years ago: “I came in with a fresh new mind, with no idea about how far I could go. BOT let me learn from early mistakes as a stepping stone into success as a VFX artist. Now I know I’ll never stop learning!” Production Coordinator Nandhini R’s path at BOT has taken her from her start also as a roto intern, through serving as a Roto Artist, and then moving into the production side. She’s proud to be a BOT, and she hopes to inspire more women to explore the world of VFX, saying, “The challenges of this industry are so exciting! There’s always something new to grow into, technical and artistic skills to conquer. There’s never a dull moment.”
The Next Frontier
Executive Admin Ruth Holleman gives smart advice to our ladies, “VFX is a very creative environment where women can shine, drawing on their capacities to be expressive, to observe many factors at the same time, and to manage outcomes efficiently. I see these female strengths as a set of advantages that the male-dominated VFX industry would do well to cultivate.”
VFX Executive Producer Camille Geier echoes the sentiment and adds, “I wholly agree that the best should get hired. Many times the best is a woman, but preconceived notions about a woman’s family responsibilities can get in the way. The reality is that a lot of times, women work harder because they are so good at juggling so many things. I hope to see more hiring managers let go of those falsehoods.”
Hetal affirms that BOT’s award-winning HR team is at the forefront of this issue of being supportive of women entering VFX. “BOT’s company leaders have opened these doors by recognizing women’s strengths, and by not hesitating to put them in strong positions,” she points out, “and our BOT women have been proving the wisdom of this approach with their excellence on the job.” She observes further, “The greatest strides in the industry so far have been with putting women in producer roles. The next frontier is to hire more women VFX artists, and then support their moving up to become supes and leads.”
And to that we say a loud and resounding, “Amen!” Happy Women’s Day and Women’s History Month to all the women at BOT and around the world, too!
Celebrating the Women of BOT
Visit BOT’s LinkedIn page for a video tribute to a parent’s aspiration and encouragement for their daughter to challenge, to dream and to achieve more, beautifully woven together with words, visuals, and music: Celebrating Women’s Day with Sand Art by BOT Swadesh Ranjan
When Australian writer/director Luke Sparke needed to infuse aliens into his rollicking post-apocalyptic storyline in the film “Occupation: Rainfall”, his team turned to BOT VFX. The storyline required numerous bi-ped alien creatures that were interspersed across many scenes throughout the film. The project was demanding because the CG creatures had to hold up to a wide variety of action-packed and drama sequences, often with heavy interactions with human characters, and some of the creatures had speaking roles.
In signing on to bring these alien creatures to life, BOT accepted a set of challenges that covered the full range of involvement from concept art to shot finaling, testing the team’s creativity and stamina, and pushing BOT’s CG pipeline to full capacity.
Giving Birth to Aliens
First, the production team provided some high level concept art and asked the BOT team to run from there. Given the tight deadlines, the BOT team wasted no time in brainstorming detailed character concepts, textures, and looks, providing the client with many references to quickly converge to some locked creature models. Decisions ranging from skin color, texture, subsurface scattering, bone structure, and muscle systems were considered as part of the creature birthing. Once Luke and his team approved the numerous creature characters, the project moved into execution hyperdrive.
Then the crafting began in earnest. There were nine characters in all; each character was sculpted with Zbrush, then pushed into Maya for retopology. Zbrush was also used to create displacement and normal maps for skin details. While texturing was happening, the character models were set up with rigging.
Stand-ins Alienated
Each shot involving the alien creatures was filmed with stand-in actors with green suits. Some shots had as many as 6 different alien creatures. That meant that each shot, and each creature in the shot, required a series of prep steps to integrate the CG creature, including roto and paint-out of parts of the stand-in actor, rotomation of the stand-in actor’s actions, and camera tracking.
The lighting team jumped onto creating proper lighting rigs for each shot and scene. Look-dev was achieved in Maya Arnold, with detailed texturing and ACES color space maintenance done in Mari and Substance software. BOT’s comp team masterfully brought together all of the pieces, by first delivering master shots and then cranking through about 226 shots in all.
Rising to All Challenges
BOT relished all of the challenges of this show — the rapid pace, the creativity demanded, and the technical hurdles put in front of them. “The early involvement in conceiving the characters was exciting, even with the tight timelines. And managing the large number of shots, and the hundreds of terabytes of data, forced us to work smarter – leveraging tools and techniques like using surface normals to manage lighting adjustments to avoid full re-renders,” said Zameer Hussain, BOT’s VFX Supervisor on the show.
“Then there was the fun of coordinating the work across three continents: North America, Australia, and Asia,” Zameer added with a chuckle. “But it was such a rewarding experience, we’d do it all over again without hesitation.”
For the twelve years of BOT VFX’s existence, Silhouette has played a central role as the company’s go-to tool for roto and paint. This strong alliance proved to be strategic in delivering convincing shots for the Netflix hit series Stranger Things.
Even with the demands of creating some very unusual environments in Stranger Things, Silhouette exceeded BOT’s typically high expectations. Because roto and paint were so intertwined in creating the desired look, the BOTs found Silhouette’s integrated approach and compositing nodes to be a tremendous boon to their creative process.
“There was one particularly challenging sequence of Stranger Things that required a skillful combination of roto and paint to sell an environment as a truly dark and empty void, but with characters, props, and set pieces involved,” recalled Zameer Hussain AK, BOT’s Creative Director. “It wasn’t just about masking out sections of the frame and dropping black into it. There were many nuances like water reflections and contact points where the content needed to remain. We relied on Silhouette to pour on a lot of paint love to make it work.”
Hitesh Shah, CEO and Founder of BOT VFX, observed: “Stranger Things gave us a lot of reasons to appreciate how Silhouette streamlined the process of achieving the look the Duffer brothers were going for. The BOTs really appreciate the craftsmanship of the tool that enables this kind of storytelling.”
Embracing the (un)Real Impacts of Virtual Production: BOT is now immersing itself in the new arena of virtual production by engaging in training from Epic on its Unreal Engine.
As virtual productions gain a foothold in the way content is shot, there is emerging a wide-ranging impact in pre-production, production and post-production. VFX professionals need to embrace these changes in the process and the underlying technology, and BOT has begun to do just that with the help of Epic Games.
With its roots in the gaming world, Unreal Engine is now inserting itself into the evolving film production arena. The real-time photoreal capabilities of the engine make it ideal for live integration of the virtual world into the physical set, and capturing it all in-camera.
Over 15 of BOT’s leads, supervisors, and artists are eagerly engaged in an 80-session training program that spans several months. The team has already completed several of the sessions and have begun to understand the enormous potential of the tool. The sessions are hands-on and involve live exercises. “It’s one thing to know about the power of the engine, but another to be able to get instant gratification of seeing great results of some experiment live in real time,” observes Srikanth S., BOT 2D Supervisor who is participating in the training. “It’s a paradigm shift for most VFX artists.”
BOT Team Member Selected for Unreal Fellowship: Epic Games has recently opened the Unreal Fellowship for individuals, a very selective training course where the students spend ten hours a day for a month mastering the intricacies of Epic Unreal Engine. BOT is proud to announce that Bala Morarji, a 3D Supervisor at BOT VFX, has been selected for the Unreal Fellowship beginning in April. After completion of the course, graduates get continual updates and support, in addition to working with top minds from the industry around the globe. We wish tremendous success to Bala Morarji as he pursues his latest challenge.
Stay Tuned! As the training wraps, we’ll update you on the exciting stuff we’ve learned and explored.
The Los Angeles chapter of VES has been pouring a lot of love onto their members during these long months of lockdown. Undaunted by limitations, their co-chairs Frederick Lissau and Reid Paul have found a lot of creative reasons to meet up online: show screening events, professional panels, happy hours on Zoom, and Zombie Octoberfest. They’ve even had in-person meet-ups for drive-in movies, in actual vehicles – socially distanced, of course!
Their latest convo was “Trivia Night: The Sequel” on January 27, 2021. BOT VFX was pleased to sponsor this event. Cash prizes were awarded to the Grand Winner, Dan Browne, and top contestants Carol Madrigal, Jan Hybrechs, and Stephen Hwang. Congrats to the winners!
And the first place goes to BOT VFX!” With these thrilling words, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) announced the winners of the 2020 Young HR Manager Competition: our very own bots Vinitha Krishnan, Muhil Vahini Pandi, and Ramya Kalyanaraman. All of us at BOT VFX extend our hearty congratulations to these energetic leaders.
The year was 2020, a year unlike any other. Faced with unique threats, the survival instinct deep in the heart of the BOT began to stir. Two top priorities quickly emerged: the health and safety of everyone in the company, and keeping their jobs alive as well.
Vinitha, Muhil, and Ramya sprang into action like HR superheroes, directing their teams to engage home-bound bots in a rich variety of initiatives. Immediately after lockdowns began, every bot got a one-on-one phone call from someone on the HR team. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve lost my job?” the bots queried nervously. “Of course not!” was the confident answer. Ramya remembers, “We were horrified they even thought that could happen. We were so glad when we heard a laugh of relief on the other end of the line.”
Also early on during the COVID crisis, the HR team supported the company-wide challenge of solving work-from-home technical and content security challenges. “It was an all-hands-on-deck situation,” recalled Muhil. “The company’s survival depended on it.”
Then, a series of employee engagement initiatives, unique to BOT VFX, began. There were games and competitions, family events, Life Skills sessions, and motivational Power Talks. The monthly Town Hall went virtual. Career growth and VFX skill development classes made strategic use of downtime due to industry-wide lockdowns. Vinitha observes, “We made sure there was something for everyone to connect with, grow with, and enjoy.”
As a result of the steady supply of encouragement, the bots’ trust and motivation got stronger day by day. Stress levels went down. In the newly-virtual world, team connections made a comeback. The end-of-year Happiness Index revealed that over 80% of BOT employees rated their well-being and job satisfaction as Good or Excellent.
“Vinitha, Muhil, and Ramya displayed creative leadership when we needed it most,” observed Shaswati Chowdhury, BOT’s Head of Human Resources and Administration.
Deepak Bohra, BOT Co-Founder and Director, shares, “This recognition from CII belongs not just to us in the Talent Management team, but to everyone on Team BOT. It truly signifies what we aspire for, to be a company with ‘art and a heart’. Kudos to Ramya, Muhil, and Vinitha for this win, and for personifying the heart of BOT VFX.”
The Young HR Managers’ Competition, co-sponsored by CII and IFMR for the southern region of India, provides a platform for young HR Managers to exhibit their talent, leadership skills, people management skills, knowledge, experience, professional prowess and creativity. The Competition showcases their contributions at the workplace in the field of Human Resource Management (including Employee Relations), that have clearly and substantially impacted business performance of the enterprise.
