The Orbit Live Awards encompasses the whole animation and VFX industry of India and recognises the achievement of an entire gambit of artists working in this field. The awards night was held on the third day (4 February, 2017) of the Orbit Live event which was taking place at The Retreat, Mumbai.
The evening was filled with mesmerising performances which included folk dance by a group of girls, hip-hop dance by the famous ‘Fictitious Dance Group’ on whom the movie ABCD2 was inspired from and the International violin girls band – Silver Strings.
Silver Sstrings played tunes of the famous Bollywood songs “Jai Ho” of Slumdog Millionaire and “London Thumakda” of Queen. Following the performances, international guests were felicitated.
A promo of the video series which is going to be directed by Vaibhav More and produced by Arena Animation was showcased. The video series is about the artists and their work, some of which has remained unknown to the public. The promo received a positive response from the audience. The awards night ended with a vote of thanks by Eso Thampi.
The students of Arena Animation were given awards in the following categories:
3D Architectural Visualisation
Nishant, Deepak, Pooja and Rahul
Character Animation Sequence
Garima Sharma
3D Product Packshot
Atit Gond
Film Trailer
Ayushi Agarwal
Character Design
Nilesh Vishwakarma
Mobile Website Design
Aarti Khalatkar
Digital Illustration
Mayank Tomar
Visual Effects Scene
Mehul Patel
Social Media Video
Ashwini Tyagi, Chander Singh Thapa, Manish Kumar and Sahil Chikara
3D Facial Modeling & Rigging
Gagandeep Singh
Make Shorty Animated Short Film Powered by Autodesk SHOTGUN
Swachh Bharat (Jayanagar)
Industry honours were given in the following categories:
Powerhouse Platform
Amazon Prime
Visual Discovery Pioneer
Blippar (Blippar India, MD, Arnav Ghosh)
Outstanding Animated Adaption
Hopmotion for Chhoti Anandi (Hopmotion, founder, Anish Patel)
Hall Of Musical Fame
Coke Studio
Prolific New Age Entertainment Brand
Culture Machine (Culture Machine, founder and CEO, Samir Pitalwala)
Visual Effects Powerhouse
Double Negative (Double Negative India, creative director and general manager, Merzin Tavaria)
Pioneer of Indian Gaming Industry
Dhruva Interactive (Studio art director, Eric Egerup and talent acquisition, Jagadish)
Pride of Indian Animation
Ishan Shukla
Hall of VFX Fame
MPC for The Jungle Book (Moving Picture Company, technology head, Shajy Thomas)
VFX Powered Blockbuster of the Year
Firefly Creative Studio for Pulimurugan (Firefly Creative Studio, co-founder, Sanath Pc)
Outstanding Music App
Saavn
Honored Guru of Indian Animation
Sekhar Mukherjee
Shahenshah of Animated Spoofs
Shudh Desi Ending (Shudh Desi Ending, director, Bonaventure D’Souza)
Innovative Online VFX Channel
Shutter Authority
Family Friendly Ecosystem Catalyst
YouTube (YouTube, Family and Learning, Content Partnership, manager, Akshata Udaiver)
Lionheart of Indian AVCGI
Yunus Bukhari
Unique Content Design
Mint
Outstanding Channel Branding & Packaging
Sony Entertainment Television (Sr. Vapi strategy and research, Amogh Dusad and VP communicaton, Prashant Saxena)
Awards for excellence in voice acting were presented to voice-acting legend Chetan Shashital, Meghna Erande who has voiced the character of Daisy in the Hindi dubbed Bob the Builder, Pawan Kalra and Meena Nata. Chetan Shashital sent the crowd in fits of laughter and filled them with awe with his short voice-acting gig on-stage, where he enacted voices of some of the most famous characters including Darth Vader from Hindi dubbed Star Wars, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy. Meghna Erande and Meena Nata too presented some of the most well-known character voices that they’ve dubbed.
International Festival Partner 2017 awards were presented to Damian Perea for Animayo, Spain and Paul Noble and Penny Holton for Animex, UK. The Media and Entertainment Festival Partner 2017 award was given to Films Division of India.
International Short Film awards were given in two categories:
Best Animated Short Film – Professional
My Life I Don’t Want (Spain)
Nyan Kyal Say
Best Animated Short Film – Student
Journey (Australia)
Radheya Jagatheva
Star Talent Awards were presented to Arena Animation students for excellent work in the following categories:
Make Your Own Movie – Pixelation
Malavika MS, Udeshi Keya Bharat, Abinaya B and Persica
3D Photography
Abhishek Varshney, Anjali Singh and Manish Kumar Yadav
CG/Live Action Integration
Shubham Jadav and Rohit Deb
Animated Performance
Geetika K Tirthani and Shubham Bhargava
Character Modelling
Sanjeet Singh Kalsi, Ganesh Sanjay Chauhan and Anirban Das