Founded in 2006 by Santosh Kale and Kavita Singh Kale and based in Mumbai, Underground Worm deals in the areas of Broadcast Design, Music Videos, Television Commercials, Short Films, Illustrations and Graphic Design and is currently working on channel Idents for Cartoon network and a series of Films for Bindas Channel. Till date, the studio has worked on projects like Music Video for Rock On, Several Promos/show packaging and channel Idents for TV channels like Cartoon Network, Pogo, TCM, MTV, Channel V, Disney and more, along with TVC for Horlicks, Gems, Tropicana and Kwality Walls.
Last year Underground Worm delivered five show IDs for Ben10’s new season- based on different characters in the episodes which won Promax Gold award for best animation. An ongoing project titled as Bindas Breakout is made up of a series of one minute films, which showcase the young achievers from India. This project is a collaborative project with Prashant Madan, Tanmay Bahulekar, and Luv Kalla in association with Underground Worm. The studio takes around 15-20 days to deliver each film from pre- production to post- production. Bindas Breakout is blended with 3D and hand drawn 2D animation.
Speaking to Animationxpress.com’s Zeenia Boatwala about the Bindaas project, Santosh Kale, Founder of Underground Worm, says, “Since the target audience is youth- we have simplified the character design, which also resembles real people that we are talking about. We have adapted a graphic novel look with each frame of the film being painted frame by frame that gives an energetic boiling treatment. The idea behind this look goes along with the current channel branding “Rest less”. We are enjoying doing the character designs, visualization of the whole sequence and cracking the desired look of each story within a set style. As a team, we spontaneously throw ideas to come up with the flow of films and it has been the most tedious but enjoyable process.
Another recently finished project of the studio is Channel Idents for Cartoon Network Asia Pacific, which is part of channel branding and is used as a promotional tool by the channel. Each film is timed between ten to fifteen seconds and Underground Worm has delivered two Idents so far along with another thirty seconds channel Ident, which is a visual effects project, executed with Shook Mei from Turner. The whole objective of the project was to integrate iconic shots from different films into one seamless sequence. It has taken the studio about three months to complete this project.
Santosh expressed, “We have been working with Cartoon Network since 2010. They are amazing people to work with and the best part is that they give enough time for production. These channel indents are long or small segments like advertisements about the channel. Most of the time channel logos play important role in the channel Idents. For our recent channel Idents, we have been given complete creative freedom to come up with crazy ideas and visualize them in a fun way. The Idents have to be black and white to go with CN’s current branding look. Sally London from Turner, the producer coordinated with us in the whole process.”
According to Santosh, the most challenging aspect, while working on the project was, “In one of the IDs, the boy picks his nose and pulls out booger. We had to create sticky, elastic substance that was transparent yucky and giggly. It took us some time to crack the right look and feel. Underground Worm has always aimed at doing different and interesting work and CN gave us all the freedom to explore!”
As a team, the studio throws ideas to come up with the flow of films and it has been the most tedious but enjoyable process and we want to continue doing unconventional and functional works with strong R&D base- by drawing a thin line between art and design.”