Animatrix Multimedia based in Kolkata is the studio behind the creation of the 2D animated series, Bantul – The Great, based on the comic strips created by Shri Narayan Debnath since the 1960s till date. The animated series currently airs on Zee Bangla every Sunday at 10 am. Animatrix has already completed 42 episodes of 21 mins for the series and is developing more.
Talking to AnimationXpress.com, Arjit Bhadra, CEO, Animatrix Multimedia shares, “Animatrix owns the copyrights of the animation format for the entire stories of Bantul – The Great created since 1964 till date. Shri Narayan Debnath is still creating the comic strips at his 90+ age. 42 episodes of the TV series have already been broadcasted and are getting a massive popularity”.
Bantul is very powerful and he can lift anything like a train, a multistory building or even a full range of hills and throw it directly at the culprits to punish them. The series have other two important characters, named –Bacchhu and Bicchhu. Both of these notorious characters stay with Bantul at his home under his guidance. Inattentive in their studies and irregular in school they always give a reason to neighbours to complain to Bantul. Very often Bantul faces several embarrassing situations, created by the two boys, and is forced to give them a strong dose of punishment to teach them a lesson.
About the challenging part Arjit says, “Actually as a director it is a very challenging project because we are working on such a huge and legendary character like Bantul. In our Bengal, it is very rare to find a single Bengali who does not love to eat fish, hear music and read Bantul. Bantul is very innocent, always fights for good, protects his town from outside enemies. All this is so familiar to the people here that it is impossible to change it even a little. It was challenging to retain the same look and feel of the characters in the TV series as is established in the comic strips. As the format changed I just brought the necessary changes in the script. In the original comic strip a story consisted of only 2 pages but in case of the TV series I have to make a 20 min episode from it!”
20 to 22 artists from Animatrix Multimedia have worked on the series. For a single episode the studio takes two weeks to complete it and also artists work for 2 episodes simultaneously.
“As a director and a scriptwriter definitely the subject demands a serious research work. I had conversation several times with the author, trying to understand his views, his thinking. Moreover Bantul is very much a period piece. The character touches the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s & 2000 and is still going on. In the script my challenge is to maintain this balance, though it is an animated series, but we have the audience of 8 to 80 years age group, and according to that the necessary changes in dialogues, environment, props, weapons, even the villain’s activities needs to be done. For example for the 60’s or 70’s audience, they are not accustomed to see Bantul with mobile phone, on the other hand in this era, kids will not be happy if Bantul is rewarded by only INR 50 or INR 100”, Arjit adds.
When asked about the response the series has received so far, Arjit asserts, “Unexpected response! Not only in India, we have received many phone calls, thousands fan mails from Bangladesh, U.S.A, Australia and many other countries of the world. Recently we have started a sit and draw competition on Bantul among the age group of 4 to 40 years throughout Bengal. We received a huge feedback. We are also planning to launch Animatrix Bantul – The Great fan club”.
The theme song of the project (Montaz) is written by Arjit, arrangement was made by Sudipta Saha, and the Background music with sound effects has been composed by Shirshankar Dasgupta and Sudipta Saha under Arjit’s direction.
Currently the series is made in Bengali language. But the studio is interested to dub it in other languages if a good offer comes by. And also it is going to release Bantul the Great in VCD/DVD format as Animatrix has its own Home Video division as well.The studio is thinking about Internet and IP TV as well.
The studio is working on 2 TV series, Bantul – The Great and Chander Buri O Magicman (telecast on every Sunday at 10.30 am on Zee Bangla). Apart from this it is also going to start work on another series, named Handa-Bhonda, this is also a very famous cartoon character of Bengal, and Animatrix Multimedia has already bought the rights from Shri Narayan Debnath. Besides, the Animatrix India group recently started its new Education division, a media college named Animatrix School of Media Studies where it is providing UGC recognized BSc. P.G.D courses on Animation & Multimedia Technology.
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