After the initial day of Animation Masters Summit 2018 concluded on a high note, day two proved to be even more fruitful!
The initial tone set by the masters at day one provided further impetus to day two sessions. Clearly the number of attendees had increased from the previous day. The first master for day two grabbed eyeballs and attention alike, as students, professionals and enthusiasts flocked the arena. Oscar winning sound designer, Resul Pookutty took to the master’s stage to give everyone a glimpse of what goes behind the controllers when creating sound and how powerful it can be.
Pookutty referred to ambient sounds as elements to set the tonality and mood of the content. He further asserted that once the layers of sounds have been set, he arranges everything together, which in turn goes into the narrative. After a session of multiple standing ovations, Pookutty concluded by saying, “sound is memory, sound is knowledge”, that it is something which has been memorised from generations and passed on, just like the Vedas.
He further said, now music is also tech and we still try to find the ones in music through the tech, which was present in the earlier days, the days when everything was recorded at once. But again he stressed that this form of music is also an expression and that everyone can see sound through their own senses.
With everyone in a mood to interact with the master, the Q and A session was long and exciting one as Pookutty happily answered the enthusiasts.
The session of Pookutty was followed up by the next master, Arvind Neelakantan from Unity. He started off stating the principles the platform works on. Democratisation of development, solving hard problem and enabling success. The major point of the aforementioned engine, he said was real-time rendering.
With a short clip from Unity’s upcoming Book of The Dead, the master explained how the rendering was completed and what are the other options in line. He further explained how Unity started as a game engine and is now a favoured choice. Finally, he concluded saying that Unity allows users to publish in cross media platforms and it will be much easier for people.
These masters were followed up by head of YouTube Family & Learning, LatAm Antoine Torres, who provided insights on the Latin American YouTube Market and how, just like everywhere else, kids and family entertainment topped the charts there as well and how consumption patterns vary. Followed by Torres’ session, Ogilvy & Mather executive creative director Kiran Antony, shared his journey of becoming the creative professional he is today, from his engineering background and took everyone down a lane of some extremely creative advertisements. While showing the aforementioned ads, he further explained the creative processes behind the ads.
With the regular Q and A session coming to an end, the focus of the event shifted to the animation legend sitting in the room. Animation Masters Summit, this year, honoured V.G. Samant, for his contribution to the Indian animation industry. The legends himself graced the stage and shared his journey. In the process he made one thing clear, verbally and otherwise, if you are determined, it is possible. He was honoured with an exclusive memento from Toonz.
Soon came the most anticipated time of the day, the Flying Elephant Competition, 2018. A whopping 2000 entries were sent this year among three categories. The judges narrowed down to a winner and runner ups in the three categories.
Luka Chuppi by Abhishek Verma won the accolade in the Animation Short Film Category while Akash Mihani’s Mum won the Live Action Short Film title. The Student-short film was won over by Gautham Shankar’s Che.
With the award ceremony coming to its conclusion, the festival director, Avaneesh Muraleedharan took to the stage for a vote of thanks. With that completed, the director called the curtains on this year’s Animation Masters Summit with a vision to come back for its 20th edition next year, in an even better way!