Rahul Thakkar

Early life and family

Thakkar was born to Prabha Thakkar and Chandrakant Thakkar in United Kingdom and was subsequently raised in India. Thakkar's mother Prabha, whom he considers his inspiration, was a teacher. His father Chandrakant was, as per Thakkar, an "actor, writer and director" apart from being a voice-over artist.

Thakkar spent his early years in Mumbai and considers himself a Mumbaikar. Thakkar completed his graduation from the University of Mumbai with a degree in computer science. Eventually, Thakkar studied at Utah State University to complete his Master's in computer science in 1995. He credits his mother for encouraging his interest in science.

Because of his father's background, Thakkar's early years in India were spent around actors. During these initial years, Thakkar worked with his father for some time in Mumbai, contributing to a 1971 Films Division of India documentary, and playing parts in television and radio shows. Thakkar also worked as a voice-over artist for television advertisements. At the same time, Thakkar's interest in mathematics and science remained predominant. Later on, he moved to the United States as he believed it was easier to make visual effects movies in Hollywood. Currently, Thakkar stays with his wife and family in Virginia.

Career

In the United States, after graduating, Thakkar worked for a few television advertisements, developing their visual effects. Thakkar also developed the show opening software for CBS' 1994 and 1996 election coverage, and for the Late Show with David Letterman.

Thakkar joined Pacific Data Images in 1996. Pacific Data Images was acquired by DreamWorks in 2000, enabling Thakkar to work with the film production company. While at DreamWorks, Thakkar worked with his mentor Richard Chuang (the co-founder of Pacific Data Images) on designing the DreamWorks Animation Media Review System, which subsequently led Thakkar to jointly win the Academy Award in 2016. Thakkar was the primary coder for the system's product suite since his time at PDI, when it was not yet known as DreamWorks Animation Media Review System.

As Thakkar explained in a 2016 interview to The Times of India, the DreamWorks Animation Media Review System was developed in an era of 56K modems: "They wanted any artist to view any number of shots, back-to-back, from part of the film, in high resolution, at 24 fps, with high quality audio, with speed-change control, from any phase of production from any department (story, editing, animation, modeling, layout, lighting, vfx, etc.)..." As per Thakkar, it was a technology that allowed technicians and artists in multiple locations to simultaneously work on films in real time; one of the main provisions was useful transparency, enabling artists and technicians to seamlessly do their work without any need to think about the technology. Apart from the DreamWorks Animation Media Review System, Thakkar says he additionally headed DreamWorks' "high performance particle system rendering software" and "colour management system and software".

At PDI and DreamWorks, Thakkar worked on several films, including Forces of Nature, Antz, The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Peacemaker and A Simple Wish. Thakkar was also a key member of the animation software development team for Shrek, which went on to win the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 74th Academy Awards. On 24 March 2002, the day of the Academy Award presentation, the contributions of Thakkar and his two colleagues for the film Shrek were recognised at a function held in New York City.

After leaving DreamWorks in 2002, Thakkar worked in PIXIA Corp from 2003 to 2013 as a Chief Architect and Vice President of Technology in the area of satellite imagery. He then worked at Madison Square Garden from 2013 to 2014 as Vice President of Technology contributing in the entertainment, media and sports fields. Later, in 2014, he became the Vice President of R&D at Brivio Systems, a company operating in the access control industry. Thakkar left Brivio in 2015, and since then has been engaged with the aerospace industry, working for a Boeing subsidiary as a Chief Cloud Architect.

At the time of winning the 2016 Academy Award, Thakkar had 25 patents in his name, including patents pending, and had also developed a web standard.

2016 Academy Award

Thakkar won the 2016 Academy Award for scientific and technical achievement for his "groundbreaking design" of DreamWorks Animation Media Review System. He was interviewed by six members of the Academy during the shortlisting process. In a ceremony held on 13 February 2016 at Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, Thakkar received the Academy Award jointly with Pacific Data Images' co-founder Richard Chuang. As per the Academy, these set of awards are bestowed upon individuals who have contributed significantly over time (and not necessarily in the past year) to the motion picture industry.

Thakkar commented in a January 2016 interview to India-West, "It is quite humbling to be recognized by AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) with a technical achievement award... It’s a wonderful feeling to know that the work we did two decades ago was still in use by the film industry. I am honored to be sharing this award with Richard Chuang, a mentor and pioneer in visual effects." He further revealed that he was excited about attending the award ceremony, additionally commenting that he expected more Indians to be featured in the Academy Awards winners' lists in the coming years.

Richard Edlund, Chair of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences praised the "outstanding, innovative work" of the awardees, adding that their contributions "have further expanded filmmakers’ creative opportunities...” The award presenters noted Thakkar and Chuang's pioneering contributions in stereoscopic 3D viewing for CyberWorld. The Academy's award citation praised the DreamWork Animation Media Review System's film review capabilities, mentioning that the technology "continues to provide artist-driven, integrated, consistent and highly scalable studio-wide playback and interactive reviews."