Would it make you proud if I told
you that the Venom
character in the Spiderman III movie was developed
and animated by a Pakistani? How does it feel to know that a Pakistani animator
worked on Hollywood blockbusters such as X-Men First Class, The Day After Tomorrow,
Mummy, The Incredible Hulk, Land of The Lost, Surf’s Up and Ghost Rider?
How does it feel to know that the same animator won an Oscar in 2008 for
working on the winning sequences of The Golden Compass!
Feels great, doesn’t it? Meer Zafar Ali, a graduate from FAST
Karachi, the man who won that Oscar and accomplished the other animation feats
mentioned above. Though still in a nascent state if compared to the
international market and even neighboring India, the Pakistani animation
industry nonetheless holds great value in itself.
Meer Zafar Ali stated: “It all started with Commander Safeguard.
We should all applaud Post Amazers for pioneering an animation lab test for
which they will be remembered for in the history of Pakistani animation. That
lab test pushed our advertising industry to come up with more local superheroes, such as Lifebuoy
Germ Busters, Dettol Warriors and Milkateers, later giving way to Mr Jeem and
Baankay Miyaan.” And when you talk about Pakistan’s animation industry, you
simply cannot forget mentioning Mr. Asim Fida Khan. The maestro has worked on
blockbuster Hollywood flicks such as Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows, G.I Joe, The Tales of Despereaux and Snow White
and the Huntsman.
To double down
on this fact, I would like to couple it with another amazing accomplishment for
Pakistan: the Pakistan-based company Trango Interactive, operated by Shehryar
Hydari, has made animations for foreign clients like Audi, Nike, Lexus, UPS, Mazda, Hyundai, Sega and has made
documentaries for the Discovery Channel. It has also made the animations for
all BlackBerry ads in Pakistan.
Another great mention here is a group of talented guys from
Islamabad who operate under the name of We R Play. How gratifying is it to have
your game selected for publishing by the people behind world-famous games such
as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope!
These guys did it. We R Play’s latest game, Dream Chaser, was published just a
few weeks ago by Chillingo, a premier game publisher that is a sister concern
of Electronics Arts (EA) – and it is doing pretty well.
Another honorable
mention is Mind Storm Studios, the game development company that received world
recognition for Cricket Revolution.
The game was not only rated as having the best game physics at many award
ceremonies worldwide, but also received higher ratings than Electronic Arts’
conventional cricket game. This later resulted in EA Sports bidding for an
acquisition of the game, but Mind Storm Studios rejected the deal. I would also
like to tell you that this is the same company that made the official video
game for the ICC World Cup 2011.
And here’s a
shout-out to a software house in Karachi, Pi Labs, which developed the official
iOS-based game for Garfield the cat
a few months ago. The app has performed exceptionally well on the AppStore,
given a strong marketing impetus to the official Garfield publisher. Another
company that has achieved success in developing mobile games is Agnitus – a
group of talented individuals who make addictive mobile-based learning games
for children.
And when Pakistani companies like Caramel Tech Solutions work on
foreign projects like Fear Factor, MTV
Games and HALFBRICK – and collaborate with world giants such as DeNa – you
can only say that for Pakistanis, the sky is the limit.
Not many of
you may know this, but the title animation sequence that plays before every
episode of Game of Thrones, the
world’s most-watched TV series these days, has been produced by Mr. Hameed
Shaukat, a US-born Pakistani. He won an Emmy for Outstanding Main Title Design
for the series in 2011, which he shared with teammates Robert Feng, Kirk
Shintani and Angus Wall.
Courtesy: "THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE"
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