To commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev ji, the ministry of culture and IGNCA commissioned an immersive show to be screened at Sultanpur Lodi. Delhi-based Charuvi Design Labs created the one of its kind show, which offered an incredible experience for the viewers.
This was curated by IGNCA and was inaugurated in the presence of Government of India minister of food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal and minister of State ministry of railways Sh Suresh Channabasappa Angadi.
The film, directed by Charuvi Design Labs founder and director Charuvi Agrawal showcases the life and teachings of Guru Nanak Dev ji in a sophisticated and delicate manner, and encapsulates scenes from his early life, travels (Udasis) and life teachings at Kartarpur.
“I was thrilled and a tad intimidated at the same time on receiving this interesting project.The idea of directing a film to commemorate Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary was very exciting but I knew it would be a very different kind of project. There was a bit of trepidation on how to approach the making of the film with the restrictions that would come from the Sikh faith on animating the Guru.But the challenges themselves turned out to be a blessing,” mentioned Agrawal.
The 13-minute animated film, which is created for a panoramic viewing was made in a short span of three weeks, with a team of artists including Aniruddh Kapruwan, Anush Singh, Chaman Kumar, Gaurav Gohsain, Furbu, Kanika Thakur, Maanya Dhar, Naveen Kumar, Pankaj Swani, Pranav Mahendra, Shubham Bairagi, Subham Sharma and Surender Singh. Design Habit’s Amardeep Behl worked as the principle designer for the animated film, with line producer Supreet Singh; production manager Snigdha Bhardwaj and technical director Vikram Kumar Verma.
Keeping in mind the short time-span in hand, the team started off by ensuring a well-planned and organised schedule from day one. “With absolute creative control over the content, keeping intact the sensitivity in mind, we made decisions faster and kept progressing ahead,” said Agrawal.
The team at CDL received substantial material from the experts for the research of the film. A rich library in connection to the key events in the life of GuruNanak Dev ji was provided to the team, to keep the representation of various scenes as close as possible.
The pre-production played a very crucial role in setting the base panels and overall compositions for the film. The team simultaneously experimented with few visual styles and cracked the same in 3D in order to give a distant look and feel to the film. For speeding the rendering process, the creative team embraced Unreal Engine in their production pipeline.
The film was showcased to a repeat audience of 250 in an interval of 20 mins and is appreciated all over, with praising motivation from minister of tourism Prahlad Singh Patel.