The Indian culture and heritage has for long been cherished and praised by one and all from across the seven seas, to the extent there have been many foreign migrants in the past who have travelled across continents, in a quest for better understanding of India’s rich culture.
But, there have been many practices in the past and some that still continue to corrode the very meaning of ‘right to freedom’; a recently released short animated video by Morph Digital Solutions attempts to throw light on such ‘righteous’ practices.
Titled ‘Dumb Desi Ways To Die’ – inspired by a viral public service announcement video campaign created by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – the animated video presents a satirical take on how the hypocritical Indian society functions and leads to many attempted suicides and also death in most cases.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, Morph Digital Solutions, director – business, Anirudh Goutham explains how the idea of creating this video came about: “We absolutely loved Dumb Ways to Die. I personally must have seen it a 100 times and love just about everything about it from the lyrics, the music, the characters, the script, the animation and the way all these have been put together to convey a very important message. We also happened to see that there are a lot of parodies on the same where other users have used their track or their characters and have created funny versions. Looking at these parodies, an idea struck us about creating an Indian version. Our version doesn’t borrow the characters or the track from the original but just the idea and the format for which we have duly given credits everywhere.”
Morph Digital Solutions has in the past rolled out other videos like Toah’s Ark and Full Circle, which also have a slight bend towards creating awareness about the environment and economic conditions in the country. “We primarily focus on achieving two objectives through our videos; one is to create awareness and the other is entertainment,” reveals Anirudh.
The company mostly functions as a services studio; this is also one of the reasons to why it doesn’t have a very active churn of fresh content as all self produced short films are made over a period of time in between the commissioned projects. This particular video took close to a month to execute, involving penning the lyrics, getting the music done, finalising the character design, ideation for animation and post production. A team of four 2D animators and a compositor worked on this video. Adobe Flash and Adobe After Effects were used to give the final video shape and form.
On the reason for taking the satirical route for the storyline or song in this case Anirudh reasons: “Daily news is very depressing, gloomy and negative and people either get very aggressive in solving these issues or go completely philosophical on social media and start preaching about what needs to be done. So the idea was to look at all this in a different way. Though it is light hearted, it still is meant to spark a thought, a discussion and a mild wake-up call of sorts. So while we don’t intend to change the society with this video, we do hope that whatever positive outcome it can generate we would have achieved our goal. So simply put, it’s just another way to look at what is happening around us.”
The team wants to reach as many viewers as possible and is also open to feedback and opinions which could help them work on sequels as well. The lyrics have been penned by Anirudh with some assistance from his wife and partner Preethi Anirudh. The song was composed and arranged by Judah Sandhy from Tape Walk Studios. “We were particular about using a female voice and he helped us find the right artists who rendered it beautifully and the music we feel is absolutely catchy which was most important for viewers to appreciate the video,” he adds.
“We wanted the video to be absolutely Indian in its feel and it being produced in Bangalore, Judah (the composer) suggested we take the south Indian route which we loved and agreed upon,” says Anirudh, on the reason for the song sung in a south Indian accent. “It also helped in making it sound and feel funny and catchy at the same time. The country loved Kolaveri Di and Lungi Dance, so why not stick to our roots, was the approach.”
Anirudh also feels that content is the biggest problem for the animation industry. He feels there are consumers for this medium but are not being fed with the right content either in terms of entertainment or awareness. “Even our video is inspired by an outside idea and not completely original. The day a ‘Dumb Ways To Die’ originates from India, we would have made good progress,” he exults.
Animation is after all a costly medium of entertainment and requires producers who are willing to take the risk in putting out such content with the hope that it gets consumed without having to spend money on promoting it, he further reiterates.
“We have lots of animators who know the softwares but very few artists who can add value to every frame. But there is immense opportunity to innovate and grow,” he ends.