The fourth edition of the ABAI Fest and KAVGC Summit that took place in Bengaluru at Taj West End between 5 and 8 February was a great place to understand and get exposed to the state of the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics industry of Karnataka.
With the focus more on clinics (rather than the usual conference model), the take-aways for students and professionals alike was much more focused and beneficial. Some of the major highlights of the fest were movie screenings of: How to Train your Dragon 2, Penguins of Madagascar (along with a short ‘making of’ presentation) from the DreamWorks Animation stable, Green Gold Animation’s Chhota Bheem and the throne of Bali and Mighty Raju: Rio Calling. The fest also bore witness to the premiere of Toonz Animation & Animagic’s Swami Ayyappan, along with the launch of Bhasin Studio’s Slick Rick and Thought Cloud Studio’s Rise of the Valiant Indrajeet.
The general consensus among the audience was that the level of content being created within the state is certainly improving and there should be more original content coming out of the state.
Among the few popular clinics which received a huge turn-out and rave reviews were: story and script by Jayanti Narisimhan; pre-production by NK Narisimhan; gaming clinics by Joshi Mark, Rajat Ojha and Hanif Mohammed; IP clinics by P Jayakumar, Rudra Matsa and Rajiv Chilaka; and VFX clinics by Seshaprasad, Vamsi Ayyagari; and many others.
The coming together of the summit and fest was a blessing in disguise for the organisers as the attendees got the best of both worlds – getting exposure to content from international and domestic studios through the fest and gaining immense knowledge and being made aware of the current state of the KAVGC industry by attending the summit.
The three day extravaganza culminated by bestowing a few honorary recognitions on some great thought leaders from the industry. Among the recipients were: late Padma Shri Pran Kumar Sharma for his contribution towards the world of comics, MPC’s Mark Benson was honoured for his business sense and driving the VFX house to great heights globally, Bhasin Studio was recognised for attempting a new venture with Slick Rick and finally Arnab Chaudhuri was awarded for his magnificent work in animation for Arjun: The Warrior Prince.
And for the very first time the audience also got to witness a very unique fashion show, where the models came dressed as famous animation and comic characters from around the globe, with Chhota Bheem getting the most cheers from the crowd. This was followed by an amazing musical performance by ‘Live Banned’ where they played out some theme tracks of famous animation shows and even got a certain Biren Ghose crooning the Jailhouse Rock in an impromptu act on centre stage.
If you missed out on all the action at the ABAI Fest and KAVGC Summit 2015, you can read all about it below.