Now, for the animation. Finally!

"The story and the way we had visualised the film offered immense possibilities and challenges for the animation. The characters had to act well, emote well, and above all perform action-packed scenes. In a huge production like Amaron, I was happy to have Virender with me on the film as he is one of the few people in India to have reasonable experience in the unique medium of model/stopmotion/clay animation" Says Vaibhav.

"Clay/ model/puppet animation, like other forms of animation is a very specialised medium. However compared to the other mediums of animation, stopmotion/model animation requires higher levels of concentration as it is a live performance. Going wrong might mean re-doing the entire sequence!" he adds.

When you draw your animation, you play the drawings to check them. If there are any corrections, you can erase your drawings/ add extra in-betweens or remove some. Again, while animating a virtual model on a computer, the animator can animate the entire character, then make as many stages of corrections as he wants, as it is a non-linear process. However clay animation is a linear process. The animator has to first position the character in its key position. Then he/she has to sculpt/mould the character frame by frame through the in-between poses to the next key pose. And, during all this, he has to ensure that this is done to every animated layer of the character! Hence the concentration!

Once again the homework phase was very crucial. The animatics was done, and so was the shot breakdown. We knew what the durations of each shot were. We knew what emotion or meaning we had to convey in that shot. We used to discuss ways to do the shots, both creatively as well as technically and with the help of other members as well, we came up with a lot innovative ways.

The actions that we planned for our characters would be documented on a dope sheet or an exposure chart. This helps in executing the planned action systematically and avoids the risk of memorising everything in your head!! Once this is done, the live performance begins!

The number of days that we had planned for the shoot turned out too less for the intesity of the production. There were at least twenty five different locations and setups for shoot and a lot of time went into the setup, lighting and animation of each shot. Much more than we had ever imagined! However every member of the crew performed like a superman. We were zombies by the end of it, but still we were highly charged and we loved it!I am extremely grateful to our entire team and without their energy, the film would not have come out the way it has. It would not have entertained people the way it has.

Says CO director and co animator Virender Rathod "One of the biggest challenges was the stunt scene where Mangal jumps from Horseback onto the moving train. To do this we actually created a rig where the tracks were sliding below the engine and the coaches creating an illusion that the train and the horse were moving"

"During the end of the sequence when Mangal is falling down after the Baloon has burst and Pandu is following Mangal with anticipation, rather than give Pandu's jeep a straight motion, we gave his Jeep a zig zag path to get the effect of a rugged terrain.

Even if you observe the clouds, to create a sense of perspective, the clouds that are in the front are moving fast while the clouds behind are slow" he adds