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In
an effort to recognize work of post production artists that use
Smoke Systems in India, Autodesk organized the first ever 'Smoke
Artist of the Year Awards'. Held at Vie Lounge in Juhu, Mumbai,
the awards witnessed close to 120 artists attending the event.
The
festivities were held at a beautiful lounge by the beach and it
was a sight to see accomplished artists' jaws drop in amazement
reviewing peer work incredulously.
Shared
Pankaj Kedia, Regional Manager, Systems (SE Asia&India), Autodesk
with Animation Xpress.com, "We at Autodesk felt
that there was a need to give artists their due and the recognition
that they so worthily deserve. It is our endeavor to get all the
artists together and give an impetus to the artist' community"
The
Smoke Artist of The Year Award was divided into four broad categories
namely, Most Outstanding Broadcast Promotion, Most Outstanding Advertising
Commercial, Judge's Critic Award and Smoke Artist of the Year Award.
The
man behind organizing the awards was Yogen Rai, Application Specialist,
Autodesk India Pvt. Ltd who commented, "Some of the work that
we have seen is brilliant and definitely on par with international
standards. The talent that this country has is remarkable and is
growing at a fast pace."
As
the awards began, the artists waited with bated breaths for the
Smoke Artist of the Year Award to be announced. The category saw
a host of nominations with one piece of art outdoing the other.
After much suspense and hooting at the entries, Prakash kurup of
Prime Focus was announced 'The Smoke Artist of the Year.' Before
Prakash could even do the formal thanking on the microphone, he
was lifted up by the Prime Focus team as a way of congratulating
him.
Prakash
was awarded for his work on MTV Non-Stop Hits promo, the Fevicol
TVC, Chintamani TVC, Thumbs Up TVC, Nike TVC and the Casino Royale
TVC.
On
his victory Prakash shared, "It's a very emotional moment for
me and I owe a lot of my success to Vivian. We, as a community have
always been neglected and this marks a beginning for the users of
Smoke which is really inspiring. I have been lucky to get a variety
from clients and have also been privileged with freedom of thought
and expression in a lot of projects."
Speaking
about talent in the industry, Prakash added, "Students need
to learn more about editing because sometimes all they have is bookish
knowledge. Workshops need to be conducted."
Adding
to Prakash's thought, Prime Focus' Aijaz said, "The industry
needs extension of projects. The technical team needs to keep in
mind the volume of the project and then plan work accordingly, this
is one thing I feel is lacking."
Overjoyed
with their team's success, artists from Prime Focus continued to
cheer Prakash clearly reflecting how much it meant to them.
In
the Most Outstanding Broadcast Promotion category, the award was
won by Harish Prabhu of Star India for the Channel [V] promo- Sundays
Open and the Nach Baliye 2 promo.
Expressing
his joy on winning the award, Harish shared "It's feels great
to have won this award. Sundays Open required a lot of hard work.
Right from when we started work on the concept we were told that
it had to look animated in a way and that's why VJ Tia was shot
in a manner to make her look animated. Her head was elongated and
made to look disproportionate and exaggerated."
He
added, "The background was shot around Mumbai on HD and high
resolution film. The idea behind Sundays Open was that on
a Sunday mostly everything is shut and the only source of music
on such a day was 'Sundays Open'. My work on the promo included
almost everything from the initial processes including storyboarding.
The best thing about Smoke is its capacity to handle high resolution
image sequences. With Nach Baliye it was a different ball
game and the entire promo took us three days to complete."
There
was fierce competition in the Most Outstanding Advertising Commercial
segment with some of the best Indian TVCs being part of the nominations.
Besides the good use of the software, one saw crazy creative ideas
that had been used which made viewing a pleasure. Bagging the award
for the Most Outstanding Advertising Commercial was Raj Tambaku
of Prime Focus for the X BOX 360 TVC.
On
hearing the winner's name, the team from Prime Focus went up in
a roar cheering Raj who wasn't present to collect the award but
whose absence was made up by congratulations being shouted out for
him by the entire team.
The
Smoke Artist of The Year Awards unlike many other awards ceremony
was informal in nature. After every category a break was announced
during which, on a little platform in the corner, a band came on
performing classic hits (which was incidentally called Smoke). That's
not it, when the band was done with its performance; the DJ took
over belting out the latest tracks prodding everyone to dance.
To
felicitate the artist who made the most unique use of Smoke, Autodesk
introduced 'The Judge's Critic Award.' The entire jury was extremely
pleased with the kind of unconventional work this artist had done.
Winning this award was Vipul Bhalala of Zee Telefilms for 'The
Gig', a promo on Zee Music.
The
promo begins with guitars which had wings being chained and struggling
to be set free which ultimately manage to break free and fly away
conveying the message that, 'Music is universal, should be made
available to all and therefore cannot be chained.'
On
winning the award an ecstatic Vipul said, "It's a wonderful
feeling to have won this award. The Smoke Artist of the Year Awards
to me is very special as I feel it's an event to appreciate smoke
editors, now artists such as us. We are the backbone of the industry.
I've been working with Zee for three years now and head the special
effects and the direction team. Apart from this I have also done
2D and 3D animation."
Before
the close of the awards Jogen said, "This is just the beginning
of a community programme. We will continue to bring out initiatives
to promote the artist' community, not only at the national level
but also at the international level."
The
end of the awards did not mark the end of the celebrations but the
beginning, the beginning of recognition of a community which vied
it for so long.
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