Seasons' Greetings!

Some sumptously seasoned, original animated fare has been savoured by Indian Television audiences in the past 12 months. As kidcasters and youth channels continue to try and push the envelope in creative packaging and communication and involve greater amount of Indian content it seems that 2006 may well be a milestone year for original Indian animation.

Toon Disney's Birthday Bhoot

One studio that has been in the midst of all these animated advances is mumbai based creative shop Vaibhav Studios.

The studio has in the past one year worked with several Broadcasters including Channel V, MTV, Cartoon Network, HungamaTV and most recently with Toon Disney for Birthday Bhoot, a new series of original films used for greeting its kiddy viewers on their birthdays.

Speaking to Animation 'xpress, Vaibhav Studios head Vaibhav Kumaresh said,"It is a wonderful time to be in Indian Animation. There has been a lot of originality in terms of the briefs that we have got from the networks, also we have been provided a lot of creative space"

"Whoever says that Indian Television offers very less opportunity for original content creators has not gauged the immense potential in the Indian television animation industry. With a whole new bunch of animation and children's channels popping up, the opportunities to create original animated local content are immense" added Vaibhav.

Besides Birthday Bhoot other films that the studio has worked on in 2005 include Cartoon Network's Half Ticket Express (Phase 1 & 2), Hungama TV Channel IDs, Channel V's new season of Simpoo and the MTV Phillips Home Theatre Contest.

While CN's Half Ticket Express is model animation, the Hungama IDs and Disney's Birthday Bhoot are in 2D, and the MTV films are in 3D (Interestingly that is the first time that the studio has produced 3D films).

"Toon Disney's Birthday Bhoot is about a Ghost that loves to scare kids on their birthday, but whenever he tries to scare kids his plans flop. The idea is to make the ghost endearing and lovable through his antics, mannerisms and voice. The character design is simplistic with every film having some scenes which can be looped while the Viewers Names and Birthdays are scrolled" commented Viabhav.

The Birthday Bhoot films are in Hindi and very dialogue based with the voice being lent by Disney India Sr Producer for Short Form Piyush Raghani. Piyush commented "The concept of having a Bhoot for our Birthday shorts was mine and I wrote the first script. In terms of direction and animation Vaibhav has put in life into the whole thing like no one else in India could have"

"Kids always love getting frightened, not frightened out of their wits but just a little. With Birthday Bhoot we have actually done an antithesis where the Bhoot always goofs up. The response is fabulous and our backend is working overtime and the guy who keys in the names of the birthday kids everyday, doesn't like me much now" grinned Piyush.

CN's Half Ticket Express

Talking about CN's Half Ticket Express Vaibhav shared,"We did the first phase of Half Ticket Express in February 05 for packaging its preschool block as Tiny TV had moved on to Pogo. The packaging really cau/ght on with the kids and we did the second series in July-August '05"

"One of the best things about working with a broadcaster is the instantaneous response and feedback. Knowing that the audience has got and appreciated what you wanted to communicate gives a high"

The resolution for 2006 is to keep working on newer styles and keep coming up with more entertaining and freshy original fare. We also have a new senior member, animation director Nitin Veturkar on the Vaibhav Studios team. The plan is to expand our core team with highly talented animation directors who have their distinct style and approach so that our studio can keep coming out with high quality & original work" concluded Vaibhav.