With pumped up volunteers and organisers waiting for the third day of TASI’s Anifest India 2016 to begin, nature had its own plans. Instead of waking up to a sunny morning, people in Mumbai were greeted with heavy rain showers, affecting the turnout of students even though it was Sunday. Nonetheless the drab weather or the less than expected turnout, couldn’t dampen the spirit of TASI members and the speakers.
What lay ahead for the students and professionals alike the following day was: The Art of Storyboarding and Visual Development, Independent short film showcase – Every Drop Counts, Life-cycle of a Gaming Asset, Student short film showcase – Chaaya and India Premier of Anima Instanbul’s Turkish animated feature film ‘Bad Cat’. However due to technical issues, the Bad Cat movie India premier had to be canned and instead the fest was open for Q&A interaction.
The Art of Storyboarding and Visual Development
Animagic’s one of the founder director Chetan Sharma with his enthusiasm and passion for the art of animation began the third and the final day of the festival. He started his session by talking about his journey in the field of animation, right from the age of 15. With Ram Mohan being his inspiration and Ajit Rao as his mentor, coupled with his strong determination and desire to tell stories, Sharma managed to come a long way in his life with plethora of widely acclaimed projects under his hood. He then went on to showcase the various works of Animagic studio over the years; be it in the field of animation, live action, advertisements or graphic novels.
He mentioned that he used to revisit his storyboards again and again to see how can it be improved. How to go about doing the storyboard? Animator, Derek Lamb had said, “While doing storyboard, capture the moment” and that’s the mantra Sharma applies in his work too. In 1997, inspired by Walt Disney’s book, he came up with an 18 minute animated short ‘MAA-AA-AA’ based on a story of a Brahmin and a goat which got released in 2007. Back then, another inspiration for Sharma was Hayao Miyazaki, the demigod of the animation industry not just in Japan but across the world. Over the years, the studio has delivered storyboards for various projects; Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Mission Kashmir, Amazon Kindle’s ad wherein the storyboard was showcased and worked upon over a Skype interaction, The Bisleri monster ad, the famous Happydent White ad and many more.
Advising the students, Sharma said, “Storyboard as if the scene has already been shot. There are lots of layers and thinking process involved in this process. The concept art / visualisation should showcase what the shot should focus on. Visualise the action and get its feel in the storyboard as that’s what will give you the feel of the actual sequence.”
Independent Short Film showcase ’Every Drop Counts’
To tell a story in the least given time has always been challenging. But more than that, telling a story in a limited time frame using a creative medium like animation and yet portraying all the emotions, sending across the message effectively and connecting directly to the audience is the greatest challenge of all.
None other than the legendary stop motion animation artist Dhimant Vyas widely known as ‘Kaka’ in the animation fraternity took up this challenge and created a one minute animated short film Every Drop Counts for Drop Dead Foundation’s One Drop Cinema competition. The competition was about creating a one-minute-film to encourage people to create a viral video around the theme of water conservation and Every Drop Counts came in second over her. The film received a huge uproar from the audience as Kaka managed to strike the right chord by sending across a sensible message and evoking the emotions to highlight a sensitive yet grave issue.
Kaka completed the film in a matter of a week by spending two hours everyday after his daily work hours as he the deadline for submitting the film was nearby. “You don’t need a big budget or high tech software to create a film. All you need is a good idea and the passion to tell a story in the best possible way,” he added. He also shared the idea of his film and took inputs from various people around him just to get a different perspective as he has always followed the practice of learning from people.
The style of storytelling was organic and abrupt without a perfect start or a happy ending because Kaka wanted to open the eyes of the people through this film. “All of us are sometimes so lazy and ignorant in life that we take few aspects of life for granted. We do not care to save water because we get it easily but there are a lot of people dying everyday due to scarcity of it,” said Kaka. Further on, a humble Kaka highlighted that every artist is a learning student all his life. He concluded, “Koi aadmi chhota ya bada nahi hota. Ego kaam ke beech mein nahi aana chahiye.” (Nobody is big or small. Do not let your Ego come in between your work.)
The session was followed by lunch break.
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