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The
guys who've given Indian animation Raju & I are at it
again. MAAAA (you pronounce it like a bleat of a goat), their
next film after Raju & I, which has been commissioned
by CFSI is nearing completion and will be ready by end of February
'05.
In
a visit which was long overdue, Animation 'xpress
met up with the team at Animagic Special Effects at their studio
in Mumbai's Charni Rd, and spoke to Raju & I animation-director
Chetan Sharma. The talk was quite a revelation.
Speaking
about the new venture, Chetan says, "We had originally conceived
MAAAA in 97, that is, it was one of the earliest concepts
that we toyed with, we storyboarded it then. In 2003 the CFSI commissioned
this movie. MAAAA has a different set of challenges as compared
to Raju & I. It is an entertainment film for children
and while we do want it to be comparable to the best Mickeys and
Bugs, we are keen that the entertainment be more homespun. In the
sense of being from our own roots of folk theatre and its derivative
Hindi films, rather than be a collection of gags and animation clichés
that come to us from the west"
"The
film being a CFSI film will also be taken to the remote parts of
the country and hopefully its raw earthy quality will entertain
children everywhere. The film is still evolving and probably will
do so till its last day" he adds.
Headed
by the formidable troika of Gayatri, Sumant Rao and Chetan, Animagic,
ever since it set up shop in 1997, has been involved in making one
fascinating animation after another. "When the first wave of
"outsourcing mania and globalization hit these shores...we
decided to stand apart and focus on animation and what it means
to us and to make films we believed in and that's all we had to
begin with. No capital, no backing, no equipment, no team...only
dreams and convictions." recollects a proud Chetan.
Chetan started early in life when he joined Ram Mohan while just
15, out there he worked under Gayatri's direction on a 20 minute
film for CFSI. "She had just returned from Disney after a 4
month internship and charged us with the secret behind Disney animation.
How the animators thought and shared ideas --practice, hard work
and pushing each other towards excellence" he recollects.
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"Drawing
their dreams - Chetan, Gayatri and Sumant "
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"Gayatri
and Sumant Rao (he's also an aeronautics engineer from IIT,Mumbai)
are IDC alumni who in many respects pioneered animation in IDC in
an era when there was almost no technical support or infrastructure
for it. Finding people who are sincere, honest, idealistic and committed
is not a common privilege...I am honoured to be working with them."
Says Chetan glowering praise upon his partners.
The
first assignment that the troika undertook (1997) was illustrations
and the animated video for Girish Karnad's Karadi Tales.
There was also the title sequence for a hindi feature film Dhoondte
Reh Jaaoge. In the past 7 years, Animagic has done a lot of
commercials, titles, music videos and illustrations, these include
Ceralac, ICICI, Perk, Elf, India's first
ever fully cel animated music video for Karadi Tales, special effects
and animated titles for feature films like Hey Ram, Josh,
Dhadkan,and most recently Munnabhai M.B.B.S. The studio
has also taken on designing and illustration assignments for several
children's books, website designs and has done the storyboarding
for pre-production and conceptualization of films like Vidhu Vinod
Chopra's Mission Kashmir, his forthcoming projects Move
5 and Yagna, as well as Ram Madhwani's yet under wraps
epic.
Even as the studio kept at its work, one fine day an organization
called ASEEMA approached them for an animated film on children's
rights and the rest is history (Raju & I).
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A
STILL FROM CHAKACHAK
" An animated dream"
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Other
than MAAAA, the studio has recently delivered the highly
amusing and interesting Elf commercials and a 5 minute animated
song sequence for Sai Paranjpe's latest project Chakachak.
This environmentally oriented children's film has just been released
in Pune and the stylized song which deals with a child's nightmare
of environmental degeneration has generated a lively response.
Talking about the elf commercials, Chetan says, "The Elf
commercials have really caught the viewers' fancy and we have been
getting a lot of appreciation for the same. Essentially these films
are very personality driven and the animation for each of these
people focuses on certain traits and idiosyncrasies that are particular
to their regional origins.." In the 4 films, the Mr.Lele has
a very restrained and gentle personality , while Satti is the boisterous
plump and voluptuous sardarni... Fatfatee waale Mishraji has the
highest recall thanks to his bearing likeness to Bihari politicians,
and Thangarajan is the southie who does things matinee idol style"
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THE
ELF COMMERCIALS
"Personality as the driving force"
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"Yet
another amusing thing about these ads is that DD has refused to
air 3 films of the 4. According to them, Mishraji cannot be used
because of the obvious references it makes to politicians, Satti
cannot be used because it carries the word sexy and lele can't be
aired because it has the word mele (which means dead in marathi)"
he shares.
"The
timelines that we worked with for the elf commercials were very
tight but thankfully we have come up with some real interesting
stuff, we did both lele and satti in just 15 days, . I remember
that the big bosses from elf had come down for a preview of the
commercials and after a single viewing they were like ' we did not
need have come these are perfect send it for braodcast'. We always
try to focus on the completeness of the commercial and not just
the animation" he further informs.
Besides the news about its latest projects, some other interesting
things that Chetan had to share with Animation 'xpress were the
philosophies and the outlook that Animagic had towards animation.
Following are a few viewpoints
On Animation
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"lets
focus on animation and make films we believe in"- Animagic
director Chetan Sharma
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"First
and foremost this is an ART form, not just an assembly line production
technique for making quick dollars. Your duty towards your art is
that you should be constantly learning and you have to be paranoid
about giving your best to your art irrespective of clients. If you
are serious about animation then budgets don't matter. Only your
commitment does." When your work speaks for itself, the economics
will eventually fall into place"
"There
is so much to do in animation and so few who can do it. There has
to be that fired up obsession and animators must grow and evolve.
Mere squash and stretch does not make animation. It is the performance
that matters"
"The true weight about a piece of art is the amount of feeling
it evolves in the audience"
"I would like to liken animation to sculpting and it is up
to each individual artist how much character he is able to find...everybody
looks at stone. But a sculptor like Michelangelo can find a David
in it. We all stare at blank paper. We try to find the personality
of the character in the drawing and acting and hopefully it resonates
with life. It comes on its own". Obviously this applies to
all forms of animation.
On
animation schools and training
Animation is about learning with someone in whom you trust and believe
in. It is not a ball bearing or iron pipe industry, it has a lot
to do with art, passion, emotion.....In that sense, animation can
be likened to a classical art form like music or dance. First you
learn the techniques for a long time and then to understand how
to effectively apply those techniques so as to arouse a feeling
or emotion in the audience is practically a life long learning experience.
Many
so called schools are exploiting the youthful energies which obviously
want to learn everything and get on with the fun stuff. Such huge
amounts of money are being transacted with dreams of bringing to
life lions, aliens and monsters. Nothing we have seen so far in
the work of the students would seem to justify the time, money and
effort that goes into most of these sorry experiences. And the effect
on the young wannabe is either that of despair or a false sense
of arrogance of having done a course which cost a great deal and
should hence call for high expectant salaries. One can't even start
bringing such people to earth...
Education
as anyone can see can make or break a person. And one awaits a sober
school where students acquire the passion for animation. Rather
than become experts in 6 months.
On
Comics
These
days comics are being increasingly seen as a springboard for animation.
while they do work that way ....that's not all..., the medium of
comics is a completely fascinating art in itself...and we were very
interested in the fantastic possibilities inherent in the graphic
art...it has already been taken to great heights by amazing artists
all over the world...read anything by Will Eisner, Osamu Tezuka,
Mike Mignola and see how primitive our concept of comics really
is.
We
have all grown up on ACK and I am a great fan of some of the best
illustrators like Ram Waeerkar, Pratap Mullick, Yusuf Lien and others...however
while they did manage to educate us in a remarkably tight 30 odd
pages it would have been interesting to see a story unfold in a
more dramatic way ...certainly if I do get into comics, I would
love to focus on the comic in a graphic novel format...there are
also some projects that we might explore in a graphic format. At
the moment though, I feel there should be no competition for time
with animation. There is just so much to do...
On
outsourcing
While I do not personally subscribe to the mad rush of getting work
from the U.S. .it does disappoint me that that's all everybody seems
to be obsessed about. Looking for work in the US is one thing and
cleaning their mess is another thing, initially before the outsourcing
wave started, people used to look down at the Philippines and now
suddenly we have demoted ourselves to trying to become their competitors.
And we apparently have an 'edge' in that we speak English well...and
our labor is cheap." he comments dryly.
On
Animagic
"The most important thing about Animagic is that we operate
as one large family. We have been through hungry times and there
has been such competition that greed could have been evoked"
"Our studio is insulated, there is so much to learn that there
is no time to look around and get caught in the stream of glamour"
"Many
of my guys have been working here for the past 7 years. There wasn't
anything tangible to hold them here then no show reel, no film,
no money, yet through just faith and belief in our dreams we have
come this far together. Needless to say, we have a long way to go...but
it is deeply satisfying that everyday of your life you are doing
what you truly believe in, with people who believe in you and slowly
and steadily seeing all that you wished for, happen. In fact we
were told that ASIFA members who had seen Raju & I in the US
are still talking about the film months after they saw it. To them,
every scene of the film was full of new sights and sounds that were
uniquely India...for them it was genuine India...the real potential
of Indian animation."
-
Anand Gurnani
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