It all began on a quiet stretch of the River Thames, where a dazzling celebration marked 30 years of UK-based tech conglomerate SRAM & MRAM. But beneath the festivities at London’s Raven’s Ait, a seismic announcement was waiting to rewrite the script of Indian cinema forever.
Dr. Sailesh L. Hiranandani, Chairman of SRAM & MRAM Group, and Arvind Dharmaraj, the visionary behind Paradigm Pictures, took the stage to reveal a cinematic dream — one rooted not in the streets of Los Angeles, but in the heart of Tamil Nadu.
With an eye-watering ₹3,000 crore investment and a bold 100-acre canvas, the duo is building a Virtual Production Campus set to become South Asia’s most advanced storytelling powerhouse.
This isn’t just another studio complex. Think LED volumes replacing green screens, AI-powered rendering engines building worlds in seconds, and 4K immersive display arrays transporting directors from dusty villages to galactic realms in a heartbeat.
As the sun sets on traditional set-bound filmmaking, a new era rises—one where filmmakers can craft entire universes without ever stepping outdoors. Deloitte’s data backs it: virtual production slashes shoot timelines by 25% and budgets by nearly 30%. For an industry often at the mercy of monsoons and location permissions, this is liberation on a grand scale.
But the project isn’t all pixels and wires.
Traditional hospital corridors, village squares, school campuses, and urban chaos will still be built—integrated seamlessly with the digital realm via anti-glare display surfaces and adaptive lighting. The aim? To blur the boundary between the real and the rendered, giving directors an infinite playground.
And there’s sustainability at the core. With solar-powered infrastructure and modular design, the facility pledges to reduce environmental impact by 80%. Less travel. Less waste. More magic.
To feed this ecosystem with talent, a world-class training academy is also part of the vision—developed in partnership with BAFTA and National Award-winning professionals.
This school will nurture local talent in visual effects, real-time cinematography, and AI-driven storytelling.
And it doesn’t stop there. AI-curated residences. Augmented reality tourism. A digital vault for global content licensing. With over 10,000 jobs expected and ₹1,200 crore in annual revenue, this campus is not just for filmmakers—it’s an economic and cultural revolution.
Veteran cinematic strategist Asish Pandit, with four decades of experience and the legacy of Satyajit Ray behind him, is overseeing this colossal project. “We’re not just building a studio,” he said. “We’re building the brain of a new cinematic world.”
Come 2026, Tamil Nadu might just become the beating heart of global cinema. And it all started with a spark on the banks of the Thames.
