Reliance MediaWorks (RMW) is currently developing the first season of Ninja Hattori. RMW has signed a production deal with Shin Ei Animation of Japan for taking Ninja Hattori from its original hand drawn traditional 2D format to making all new 2D FLASH episodes of the classic series to be aired on Nickelodeon India. RMW is also doing part of post- production covering Sound Effects, Sound Design, Background scores and editing in their state of the art TV Commercial studio.
The deal spreading between 4 companies and 2 countries had a number of initial exchanges while finalizing the technical, quality and creative aspects. Ninja Hattori is expected to air on Nickelodeon India in 2012. The season I consists of 13 episodes of 22 minutes.
Shin Ei Animation provided pre-production material in the form of Script, Storyboards and Exposure Sheets. RMW devised and adapted a unique interface between pre-production material & production. Around 110 artists from RMW are working on the season 1. The traditional characters were rigged specially in FLASH by keeping in mind not to loose their traditional values and at the same time offer ease of production. The show is managed with a manpower mix of Reliance’s CORE multi skilled artists and contractual work force.
About making the deal Shamboo Phalke, Executive Producer, Reliance MediaWorks shared, “We were carefully chosen from a select group of animation companies in India. The process of selection was quite long, wherein expertise in handling large projects, traditional knowledge and know how in converting a traditional show to digital show mattered a lot. Our consistency and most importantly passion and dedicated approach of carefully handling a renowned property finally clinched the deal for us.”
About the challenges faced in the development of Ninja Hattori Shambhoo asserted, “Execution was relatively easier for me and my team which has a significant background of traditional animation and an excellent track record of delivery. The challenge was being patient, understanding the real needs of client, handling the job in small stages in a large corporate environment. During various meetings, before and after securing the deal, Shin Ei Animation & TV Asahi representatives constantly interacted with our team”, Shambhoo added.
The contractual finalizing of the deal took a little longer than expected due to attention to details, involvement of multi country teams with different languages.
Reliance MediaWorks’ Animation vertical comes under its “creative services”. Reliance has different departments for – Animation, VFX, Conversion, Restoration & TV commercials.
