Identifying ones calling, learning the craft that it requires and exploring new avenues once certain proficiency has been achieved, this is how everybody expects their professional life to be. But there is unique clan of people who turn their gaze towards the prospect of spreading the knowledge that they have harnessed and enriching the lives of others along with theirs.

They are the teachers. The Gurus.

Mentoring and guiding students through the amazing world of animation, helping them understand this art form and its numerous possibilities; there are some seasoned teachers who have made a world of a difference to the lives of many people and to the industry as a whole. AnimationXpress.com brings to you a special bouquet of guest articles by five renowned and committed Indian Animation Gurus.

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Ajit Rao Animation Maestro

A Dual Journey of Discovery

My intermittent journey in teaching Animation goes back to the years when overseas production opportunities began surfacing in India. The emerging large studios intended, chiefly, to improve the existing skills and to expand the number of animators to take on these lucrative jobs. Original Indian content development, which has been a close preoccupation with me, was considered a big taboo then. I saw in these assignments an opportunity to evolve a training programme that, besides providing the studios with the required animation skills, also helped nurture the creative abilities of the artists. This task turned out to be more demanding than it sounds.

Indian society and its schools provide a peculiarly inadequate upbringing and education. Firstly, we belong to a land with the richest heritage in all the arts, from architecture and dance, to storytelling but the student is rarely made to apply his creative mind in this direction. Secondly, we seem to entertain and carry a number of inhibitions and complexes which are definite blocks to an expressive mind. The outcome is that the creative and expressive abilities remain largely dormant. (This equally applies to us teachers, professionals and… financers too.)

While selecting the potential animator, care needs to be taken to spot these inner qualities besides, of course, an enthusiastic passion for the medium of animation storytelling. Equipped with a student team, thus selected, the challenge in the training programme lies in providing for a dual journey of discovery –the excitement of discovering a new medium combined with the excitement of discovering oneself; ones creative and expressive abilities. Providing for a third discovery (or rather rediscovery) - an exposure to Indian art, culture and stories; would be the crowning element.

Each student had to develop his own cartoon character belonging to his native place, work out a basic premise around the character and bring it to life. In such a process, each student’s cartoon character evolves proportionate to the student’s personal development in the skillful synchronization of various skills, from drawing to acting, to effectively extract a performance from the drawings. I had added the point of native place to sensitize the students to the wealth of art, architecture, natural terrain, costumes, facial features, stories that varied regions in India offer. And the point of a basic premise was added to understand the essence of storytelling. Thus, one was aiming to evolve an animation artist with a sensitive understanding of all aspects of the medium to better understand his role as a character designer, layout artist, animator, storyboard artist and director among other things.

But Indian animation is in a tearing hurry. The banquet dates have been announced- there is no time to sow the seeds for the vegetables. The menu has been set and now one needs the ingredients in a rush. Training programmes crop up overnight to prepare and provide for this deficiency. Students get attracted by the bait of job placement guarantee and high salaries. This leaves very little place for the joy of teaching and more importantly the joy of discovery.

Prosenjit Ganguly Animation Filmmaker

Learning Lessons to Learn

9am. A chilly Calcutta winter morning. A class full of 4th standard boys looked straight ahead at a menacing little bespectacled figure in the backdrop of the blackboard. “I do not want to hear a word in my class, do you understand?” You could almost hear the 8 year old heart beats. The dropping mercury did little to dry the sweating palms, clutched in fear.

He was our science teacher. Fortunately, I have had to see very little of him. I spent a decent part of his classes punished outside the classroom for 'interrupting the proceedings with inconsequential questions'.

Ten years later in Ahmedabad, it was yet another class bathed in silence. All eyes glued on a leaf held in a fragile hand. All ears hugging on to every word that left the speaker’s lips. All minds soaking up the precious moments of a lifetime’s experience. This was where I got my first lessons in learning. At the National Institute of Design, learning was a group activity, a process through which knowledge was shared, enriched and applied. It also became apparent, how very important it was for a teacher to be a perpetual learner.

We are all natural born learners. A teacher can only play a positive catalyst’s role, infusing a few elemental qualities by exemplary demonstration. I regard my interactions with students of animation and film design amongst the most rewarding of experiences. The effort has been to share the little things that had made my own student days at the design school, so valuable. Simplify complexities, welcome fresh ideas, transform the task of thinking into an art, inculcate an atmosphere of open critic, encourage lateral thinking and take time seriously because that is one thing that never lasts long enough!

I wish more students could grow into professionals through caring guidance and motivation to excel. Presently, it is a rarity to meet people with a genuine passion to impart the best education. The industry-ready dynamics are making deep dents in the quality of media education. Ironically, with all the information available at fingertips, this is the best time to impart comprehensive education! Reference material, technical updates, research, processes – these are all available at the click of a button! All tools to make learning more interesting than ever before. Add to it the enthusiasm of a mentor who believes in teaching as a cohesive partnership in an ever evolving learning process.

Something tells me that my 4th standard science teacher, who did so well to kill curiosity with a single one-liner, must be curiously pestering his 4 year old grandson, to explain the functions of the new TV remote control unit. A good teacher is in the making. The evolution continues.

Prince Paikattu Chief Technical Officer, Wiztoonz Animation Pvt Ltd, Bangalore

Not a Job, It’s a Career!

It was quite an accident that I started teaching animation. Though I had worked as an art instructor earlier, this time it was significantly different. This difference was primarily because animation is a ‘fusion’ of many art forms. There is drawing, painting, literature, visual story telling, film making, acting, psychology, science, mathematics, technology and many more. As a trainee animator, I was blessed with quite a few wonderful teachers, Mike Owens, Vincent Proce, John Griffin, Ron Flietcher and John Mc Clennahan, a three time Emmy award winning director. Their training methodology was very simple… LEARN WHILE YOU DO IT..!! That was the best part of our training.

I believe that there isn’t any better way than ‘apprenticeship’ to train someone in animation, and over a decade of my own experience confirms the same. You can’t make an animator by just talking about it. Let them do it, allow them to make mistakes and show them that there are other ways that you can make it better..!!

Comparatively to the time that I began my career as an animator, the training pattern and methodology had evolved a lot. This is primarily because of the reason that the industry was on the ‘outsourcing mode’ in the beginning, and naturally the training was (only) focused on the skills required to crank out production needs. Today, as our studios are executing more production components (pre and post) and most importantly, we are making our own IPs, the industry is looking for a far more creative, versatile and skilled manpower. This need changed the mode of training as well. Now, the training must include a variety of cross-pollinating subjects and should have more time.

But, contrary to the need of this new pedagogy most training institutes adapted an ‘instant training’ mode because of pure selfish reasons. This holds the biggest threat to the industry and students and shall be discouraged.

As a mentor I know that I make a difference in my student’s life. That realization makes me greatly responsible. I know that I am not preparing them for just a ‘job’ but a life long career. That would let me seek ‘out of the text book’ ways to reach out and educate them. That takes a lot of my time and energy to edify and prepare myself before I get in to the class. There I am expected to have an answer for every single question asked..!! Showtime..!!

Indeed, it is an interesting profession; especially in this ever evolving art form. It surely demands a lot, but that’s what makes it fascinating. I always had, and will advocate the fact that animation essentially is an art form, and there shall be art studies, visual story telling and film language as part of an animation course, not just the software. They can be very significant tools for an animator only when he knows ‘how to use’ them for a ‘specific story need’. Software cannot offer short cuts to proficiency.

A fellow instructor once mentioned that teaching is such an ungrateful job, that none of his students remember him once their studies are over. Bad. My former students call me on teacher’s day and say, ‘THANK YOU FOR BEING THERE’. That keeps me going..!!

Sekhar Mukherjee Coordinator - Animation Film Design NID

What is your story?

Well talking about why I love to be in animation academics is not really going to be a straight one as the paradox is the balance between the dream & reality, especially in a nation where animation storytelling is everywhere but yet it is not visible enough…

Born in a large Bengali family full of uncles, aunts and grandparents (the rare one nowadays) who always used to tell me stories and gift me books, loads of them, and spoiled me from studying the boring subject like accountancy. Soon I got into bunking the classes and sneaking into theatre to see films of all kinds like commercials and regional to world cinema as Kolkata has always been the cinemaholic city!!!

It was 1990 ,I was working as a cartoonist and illustrator with Economic Times, Kolkata where I came to know about NID and its unique open learning system from a senior student who came to our office as a summer trainee.1992 I got through NID and I discovered an entirely different learning environment where students and teachers from all over the country/world are sharing, learning and practicing the various subjects of design by trial and error with NO EXAM culture to discover one’s strength and weakness…a real winner for me.

After working almost for 6 years through many a grind I came back to my alma mater realizing that my heart lies in ‘Teaching’ as it keeps me fresh and young to be with the younger ones and the green horns and share with them the stories of life time and again.

So whenever I go to class I always bank on my memory and past learning and mix it with the present and turn every session with cross reference and stories to tell my students that you are not alone…as we are carrying 100 odd years of animation history and 5000 odd years of ancient civilizations and more of all millions of years of earths evolution!!!

Now looking back I feel my early days of bad habits like watching films, listening to music, reading books and also meeting many a colourful personas and their unsung stories, gave me enough fuel to move ahead with animation education as I sincerely believe this are the ingredients for our original content and the job is how to decode it through animation???!!!

Along with coordinating the animation department I take couple courses like Fundamental of Animation, Kinetics, Pre-production and Graphic Novel plus the thrill of guiding/mentoring student projects. Every time I go to any class I love to quote great Einstein “I am not talented, I am mere curious” and “I do not Teach, I facilitate”.

I sincerely acknowledge some of the great teachers who inspired me to teach, are R L Mistry, Nina Sabnani, Binita Desai, Prakash Moorthy, Avinash Despande (FTII, Pune), Barry Parker and Derek Lamb(Sheridan College, Canada) and the ever green classics of literature, cinema, music, theatre and cultural anthropology of the world!!!

So I repeat, to me learning animation is a chemistry not an algebra, its a ways of life not aping it and it’s an unique mode of storytelling.

So what is your story???

Reno K Subramaniam Vice President (Research & Development), Frameboxx, Bangalore

I Love Teaching

In the year 2000, I started my career as a teacher for 3D. Teaching as people commonly mention is a very noble profession, no matter what you teach. Passion drives me and “I LOVE TEACHING”.

When I started my career as a teacher my idol was the tribal boy Ekalayva. Inspite of Guru Dronacharya refusing him to teach archery he mastered the art to challenge the great Arjuna. In the year 2000 when 3D started developing in India, as a teacher I found it really difficult to learn, upgrade myself and deliver since there was no help on the technical front. I developed my own ideologies in teaching and still spend sleepless nights to deliver the best to my students.

To be very frank and honest, the driving force for me was the student who would come the next morning with a belief that “my teacher will equip me with the right knowledge and help me find a career soon”.

In short for me 3D means Discipline, Dedication & Determination.

Be Disciplined - Start your batches on time. Never blame or complain about student’s incapability. Feel responsible for every student.

Be Dedicated - Even if you have an experience of 10 years, make sure you enter the class as if that’s the first day of your career. Keep learning - never stop your learning process. Share Knowledge in all best ways possible.

Be Determined – No matter how much ever hard work you need to put in, be determined to make your student world class.

Last but not least as a teacher I have always followed the Zen principle of being an “EMPTY CUP”.

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