Visual effects supervisor, Keya Banerjee, makes her debut on the marquee. But unlike dad's histrionics on the big screen, she creates quite a stir behind it

If you ask me anything about my dad, I will scream!" Keya Banerjee, the petite, perky and pretty daughter of actor, Victor Banerjee, laughs; but questions about dad are inevitable, especially since he happens to be a legendary actor, whose body of work is much admired. We are at Purple Haze, one of the several opulent lounge bars in Bandra. Oblivious to the surroundings, she recounts her tale of grit and hard work. Keya can now walk out of her father's shadow and take a bow on the Bollywood marquee. She has been noticed for the lifelike effects in director, Farhan Akhtar's Lakshya, her first motion picture as a visual effects supervisor. "I am surprised by all the attention. Normally, people don't notice the backroom guys, those who handle the technical aspects of filmmaking," says Keya.

She had been working with UTV, supervising visual effects for Shararat, a serial on Star Plus, when she got the opportunity to do Akhtar's film. "UTV had created a new visual effects department. I worked on Shararat and some ad films like MRF, before Lakshya happened." Creating visual effects for the film involved extensive discussions with the director, chalking out the shots, angles and the storyboard with sequences that required special effects. "I was thrilled when he told me he wanted everything to look real. Till then, directors demanded Matrix-like bullets zooming in and out of frames."

Keya camped with the crew at Ladakh, supervising each shot. "I looked for glitches. Sometimes, a hidden wire would come out, which the director may not have noticed." The hostile, icy, desert terrain made the job difficult, "since there were three cameras to chase! I had to note detailed technical information from each camera after every shot, crucial bits that helped in post-production." In the editing studio, she would monitor the graphics and visuals added on to a shot. "For the scene where a chopper flies above the Ladakhi grassland, I took still photos and layered them to create a whole image." Lakshya had 38 minutes of special effects, including scenes with choppers flying above Ladakh and the rock climbing scene, which was actually shot in Mumbai. "The art director gave us a 60 by 100 feet set on which we did what we could."

She admits that 'special effects' was a graduating gift from her parents. "Our family is completely non-filmi. We would go on the set sometimes, when dad was shooting, but it left very fleeting impressions. I studied at Woodstock, this very fancy school in Mussoorie, which had students coming in from around the world. My parents moved to the hill station and bought a lovely home there, since they wanted to be with me and my sister, Dia, who was also in the same school."

Weekends meant long treks in the green valleys around Mussoorie, lots of eating, playing, and the Sunday movie treat. "I watched loads of cartoons or movies like The Jungle Book. Among dad's films, I enjoyed A Passage To India. He looked fantastic in the movie!"

She was just 17 then, and her introduction to the fascinating world of special effects was a gradual process. In her own words: "I couldn't act to save my life, so that was out! It wasn't as if I excelled at academics, drawing or painting, but I had a sense of colours, and I was good with computers." As a gift for her Grade 12 results, her parents let her join a computer graphic course. From there on, it was a journey of discovery, through her years at St Xavier's College, Mumbai, the Edit Institute, where she did a multi-media course, her summer jobs at editing and graphic studios, especially at the United Studio Limited, where she laid hands on Flint, a visual effect software. Call it luck but the special effects-laden The Matrix released around the same time. "I knew that's what I wanted to do."

Keya joined Harvard University for a course in principles of computing and graphic design, and then enrolled at UCLA, California, for an advanced course in visual and special effects. Lakshya, Keya believes, is the best thing to have happened to her. She has just completed two ad films and negotiations are going on for a motion picture, but she does not want to say too much about it as yet. When she is not in front of her computer or on a film set, she likes solving jigsaw puzzles, a hobby that challenges her in a different way.