The hall was well lit with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The camera was set and the projector was in place. The speakers and the audience were all charged up with high energy quotients. Animation Xpress in association with Adobe hosted “The Art of Motion Graphics & VFX” seminar on 9 August, 2017 at The Club, Andheri West, Mumbai from 10 am to 5 pm. Organised for the industry artists, the event was designed to address the need for fast pacing work and staying abreast with software and technology and at the same time, simplifying work with numerous customised options with the aid of Adobe software. The speakers lined up for the day were Adobe India digital media head (SMB) Gaurav Kanwal, Contiloe Pictures CEO Abhimanyu Singh and VFX supervisor Deepak SV, Adobe South Asia senior solution consultant Guru Vaidya, and Vaibhav Studios art director Ganesh Kotale and pre production artist Anand Babu. Animation Xpress founder CEO and editor in chief Anil Wanvari welcomed the speakers and the audience. He also thanked the Adobe team for associating with AnimationXpress to organise seminars for the industry.
The first speaker Gaurav Kanwal started with questioning the audience about the phenomenon of videos going viral on social media. “This (videos going viral) puts the responsibility on the shoulders of video makers,” said Kanwal, highlighting how all clients want their videos to go viral. Understanding the plight of video makers, he introduced to them the latest and updated version of Adobe Creative Cloud and explained how stunning content can be created, stored and shared using it. “Giving your customers good experience in first go is better than doing damage control,” he said. Adobe India has a Facebook Live session every Thursday at 11:30 am, where users can resolve their issues and get their queries regarding the software answered. Creative Cloud’s one year subscription will give the user an opportunity to schedule one on one sessions too.
Next up was Abhimanyu Singh’s talk on VFX in mythological and historical shows. While Singh explicated the creative and production process that goes into the creation of VFX-heavy TV shows, Deepak shared the challenges of churning out VFX content on a daily basis with tight deadlines. With shows like Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat, Maharana Pratap, Sankatmochan Mahabali Hanuman and now Vignaharta Ganesh, Contiloe Pictures is changing the face of VFX on small screens. The following session (or should we say the speaker!) was the one that the audience eagerly waited for. Guru Vaidya spoke about the new features and improvements that have been added to Adobe After Effects CC, explaining in detail about the latest add-ons and how to utilise them. He then spoke about using Cinema 4D lite for visual effects and motion graphics; elaborated on 360/VR workflows with Skybox; and also tracking with Mocha for Adobe After Effects.
Post lunch, Vaidya again took to the a stage, this time to talk about Illustrator CC and working with 3D. Navigating effortlessly through the software, Vaidya demonstrated the creation of art that has both depth and dimension. The audience received insights on how leveraging Illustrator’s powerful tools to create 3D effects can help raise their work to the next level.After a nice hardcore session, Ganesh Kotale and Anand Babu from Vaibhav Studios showcased videos from their extremely famous series, Lamput, that sent the audience into fits of laughter. The 20 to 40 second videos that are gaining a wide appeal on Cartoon Network are created by a small team at Vaibhav Studios. Kotale and Babu narrated the journey of evolution of this show from pitch to final product. They mentioned how Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash and Adobe After Effects helps them create the animation from sketches to the final product.
The event ended with the session, “Animating Characters Using Adobe Character Animator CC” by Vaidya. It was a session that turned out to be a favourite amongst the audience. They were quite impressed with the way Vaidya enthusiastically demonstrated the tricks and techniques to go about the software.Anil Wanvari felicitated the speakers with the book Creativity Inc. by Amy Wallace and Edwin Catmull.
Freelance YouTube video creator Mangesh More won the one year subscription of Adobe Creative Cloud by a first lucky draw while motion graphics designer Aslam Hossen won the Creativity Inc. book from Animation Xpress in the second draw. More fought back his tears as he stepped on the stage. “I was hoping that I would only win,” he said in Hindi. He shared his struggle of creating videos as he does not have enough finance to purchase the licensed software. With a free one year subscription now, he will be able to create his videos without any trouble. What better difference can you make!
Apart from learning the tricks and tools for creating exceptional visual effects, extraordinary motion graphics and exciting animation, the audience also got a chance to interact with the speakers and the peers at the event.With an overwhelmingly positive response from the attendees, AnimationXpress and Adobe look forward to more such events with the industry artists, with greater participation.
