Social voice takes animation route!
Initiated by Campaigners of Early childhood Education in mother tongue of Odisha, this 5 minute 2D Flash Animated Short Film named, ‘Ganugun Bati Ahangna’ orbits around the story of 5 year old girl named Jhili.
The short film is part of a campaign communication tool which intends to spread the message of mother tongue based early childhood education that will guarantee a stronger foundation to the tribal children and curb illiteracy and drop-out percentage in the tribal dominated districts of Odisha as 1.4 million Tribal children between the age-group of 0-6 years in Odisha don’t have access to quality early education because they don’t understand the language of instruction in their government run preschool centers known as Anganwadis.
Released in Bhubaneswar last month, the story of this animated short film is composed with two friends, Jhili and Geeta. Jhili loves to sing and dances like her friend Geeta and aspires to learn new things, but she cannot as she is unable to understand the language of instruction in the Anganwadi centre. Five year old Jhili from a tribal hamlet in Rayagada supports her mother in household work till Ebani Didi from her community comes forward to show her a ray of hope and bring her back to school.
ganugun bati ahangna, [which means learning with dignity] is targeted at tribal community members, children, media persons, government officials, academicians, politicians and NGOs working on education and tribal issues.
It has taken 3 months to complete the short film and is animated by Inddriyan Media Pvt Limited whereas the post-production work has been executed by production house titled Naked Eye and produced by Sikshasandhan with support from a Netherland based grant making organization Bernard van Leer foundation.
Speaking to Animationxpress.com’s Zeenia Boatwala about ‘Ganugun Bati Ahangna’, Preeti Prada, Concept Creator of the short film, shares, “We have tried to create a small tribal hamlet in Rayagada district of Odisha, and used music and colorful art to depict the richness in tribal cultures. I feel, the colourful imagery depicting tribal community set-up in the animation film is the most attractive aspect of this short film.”
Currently, the film is made in ODIA language, but the team plans to translate the short film into various tribal languages in near future for community sensitization.
While Parichay Das CEO of Inddriyan Media Pvt Ltd states that “the most daunting task of creating this short film was communicating a wide range of information about the campaign within duration of 5 minutes and it took us three months to brainstorm and create this creative product. And for us, the technical team being associated with the campaign work and contributing to it in a way was the most satisfying experience.”
Preeti adds, “There was also a probability of being mis-represented and at a campaign level any kind of wrong communication would affect us immensely and hence we had to be extra careful in our approach of expressing the demands of the campaigners as well as the need of Early Childhood education for the indigenous children in the most appropriate manner.”
Informs further, “We had undertaken considerable research before making this short animation film as our major intent was to voice out the need for a campaign as why there is a need for tribal children to have their early education in their mother tongue, and how it would benefit in the existing scenario if the approach is undertaken.
Coming to the technical details, this short film has been brought out with the use of Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe after Effects and Adobe Premier Pro.
“Conversion of the concept in the terms of a common man and achieving the same through Audio/Visuals Animations techniques is the USP of ‘Ganugun Bati Ahangna’,” concludes, Parichay Das.