In the session ‘The Making of Tripura‘ at Anifest India 2011, Animation Filmmaker & Founder Animagic Chetan Sharma spoke about the detailed pre production that went into making of this television special film. ‘Tripura‘, one of the best-loved Amar Chitra Katha titles, is a story of Lord Shiva, recounting an epic battle between Devas and Asuras over their kingdom of the three cities.
The complete pre production along with story and voices for Tripura was done by Animagic, while the production of the series was done in Malaysia at Inspidia Studio.
While recounting his old connection with tales of Amar Chitra Katha and Tripura, Chetan says that Tripura‘ has always been one of his favourite stories, and through this film he got an opportunity to pay tribute to all the great artists that inspired him and were in a way his teachers in drawing as he has never received any formal training in arts. Tripura was an attempt to go in a new direction by portraying a story of Lord Shiva in place of popular characters of Lord Krishna and Rama.
Animagic went through the various versions of the Tripura story that exist today before scripting the film. All the aspects showcased in the film have been derived from the original story of Tripura. “We didn‘t add any cute looking characters to it, just to make it appealing to the audience. We wanted it to have the right mythological feel to it,” he added.
“We worked with the scale of the characters, like Lord Shiva is shown huge, the Asura‘s smaller and the humans even smaller.”
Showing the storyboards of various sequences, Chetan shared that since the production of the series was taking place in Malaysia the complete film was storyboarded with color keys to capture the exact mood of each sequence and convey the same to the production studio. He also showcased the development work that went into making of Lord Shiva‘s tandav (dance) sequence, wherein the studio wanted it to have a primeval and cosmic feel to it.
Tripura was co production between ACK Media & Cartoon Network and film premiered on Cartoon Network India.