New digital tools for pre-visualising enable scenes to be completely conceived and put on videotape well before actual shooting. This is great news for action and dance choreographers who would like to compose new-age sequences, and for cinematographers who would like to save expensive studio time and experiment with lighting effects on the computer well in advance of the actual shoot.
Advances in scanning, recording, storage and retrieval of digital film footage now enable editors to plan a dizzying array of slick cuts on their edit machine, then render them at film resolution without any fuss. The earlier generation of hardware like Inferno was priced at Rs 4 crore a piece. Today, a comparable software like Fusion or Shake costs Rs 2 lakh and works on a regular PC or Mac.
Screenplay writers now have the freedom to unleash their creative side without fear of ridicule. Anything they dream up can be digitally created.
Sound engineers can line up hundreds of tracks of sound effects sourced from an amazing array of low-cost digital libraries, using software like Pro Tools or Sound Scape.
Directors can create a new visual fabric for their story, limited only by their power to imagine and integrate.