Drishti the annual CG exhibition and Placement Mela organized by Arena Animation - Park Street will take place on the 30th-31st May '09 at Ashutosh Centenary Hall, Kolkata. Drishti 2009 would be inaugurated by the ace cartoonist Shri Chandi Lahiri. His associations to name a few are staff cartoonist of the "Ananda Bazar Patrika" group of newspapers (1961-1990) and he is also the maker of cartoon titles of the films like Mouchak, Dhonni Meye, Mantra Mugdha, Hansaraj and Charmurti.

The objective behind Drishti is to simulate the environment of schedule bound competitiveness which the students are likely to experience in the industry which they would join after passing out from the institute. It also helps in exposing the students to external criticism and weaning them away from tool based to design and visualization based approach to CG and digital film making.

The works of the students would be reviewed by the following judges

• Sarbajit Sen
  Sen is a cartoonist, illustrator, comic strip artist, and also an eminent painter and film maker. He had long involvement with leading newspapers like Statesman and Economic Times, recently started contributing cartoons with write-up to China Daily. Also is a category National award winner in his first film.
  
  
• Amit Sengupta
  Sengupta had graduated from FTII Pune in cinematography. He started his career as a freelance cameraman. Started his own company and has been involved in the production and direction of several hundred television commercials - for numerous local & multinational clients both in India and abroad.
  
  
• Shilpi Chauhan Chakraborty
  Chauhan Chakraborty is a NID alumnus. She did her post graduation in graphic designing, worked in Delhi for a year. Currently she is working as a free lancer in Kolkata. She has designed Sarbari Roy Choudhury's book Sensibility Objectified. Her works include designing corporate brochures for The Sonnet, Kolkata and Jamshedpur, The Courtyards, to name a few. She is the secretary for The Animation Society of Kolkata (TASK).

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Every year we a new dimension is added to this event. In the seventh year, a Placement Mela has been added along with the exhibition where the works of our students will not only be showcased to the people from the industry but also create an opportunity for them to select the right candidates of their choice, based on the quality of work on display. The placement mela is scheduled on 31st May 2009 and about 3-4 local companies are expected to recruit.

In addition the format of Drishti has been sufficiently tweaked keeping in mind the shift in focus of students from "software" to animation film making. Hence newer categories like caricatures, visual story, cartoons, film posters and animation films have been introduced.

Drishti 2009 will showcase art work of some new categories including

a. Visual Story telling (New)
b. Caricatures (New)
c. One frame cartoons (New)
d. Film Posters (New)
e. Digital Art (Repeat from last year)
f. Students film (New)
g. Faculty Film (New)

In addition to the exhibition, the event will be peppered with a lot of activities to keep the atmosphere buzzing and electrified. Some of these activities include a Magic Show, face painting and many on the spot competitions including writing captions/dialogues for a set of cartoons.

Ramesh Ruia, Director of Arena Animation - Park Street said that he was looking forward to and was excited about the faculty films who are all vying for a cash reward of INR 5000/-. "This is the first time the faculties will also be competing, albeit in a different category, and this should act as an inspiration and set high standards for the students to emulate," he added.

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