Imageworks India, the Indian arm of Sony Pictures Imagework, has opened a new, state-of-the-art facility in Chennai.

The Chennai facility has about 90 artists and technical experts and would be scaled up to 180 workers, the company said. It also has seven animation experts.

“In the first year of operation, our primary goal has been to integrate our India operations into our Culver City production workflow,” said Tim Sarnoff, president of Sony Pictures Imageworks. “Artists are no longer afraid of technology, especially in India,” he said.

Founded in 1992, Imageworks - a component of the US-based Sony Pictures Digital Production - acquired 50.1 percent stake in FrameFlow (India) Private Ltd, at a cost of $5 million last year.

FrameFlow was founded three years ago by the promoters of Shasun Chemicals, the Chennai-based pharma company and first worked Imageworks on films such as ‘Click’, ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Spiderman-3’.

Globally, Sony Imageworks is doing business worth nearly $7 billion, and has captured 37 percent of the box office for global visual work. Imageworks has production studios in Culver City, California, and New Mexico, and now in Chennai.

Imageworks has done the visual effects for 'Spiderman', 'Monster House', 'Stuart Little', 'The Chronicles of Narnia' and several other academy award winning films.

Its most recent films have been 'Ghost Rider', 'Beowulf' and 'I Am Legend'. In 'I Am Legend', the Indian team worked on the Times Square Meadow scene in which Will Smith is seen in a ruined grass-grown Times Square.

“Our team is now working on the next release, a film called Hancock,” said Krishnakant Mishra, who was creative supervisor for films like 'Lord of The Rings', and is the creative director of Imageworks India.

Sanroff, who has seen Bollywood films like 'Krish' and 'Chak De', said: “Imageworks is in the business of visualizing, whether it is Hollywood film or Bollywood film or one made in Hong Kong or elsewhere.”