Nickelodeon’s original animated series Gattu Battu just released last month and the network has now come up with a dance music video for children, which has been created using the motion capture technology.
Viacom 18 used mocap first time for a song of its TV series based animated feature Motu Patlu King of Kings. And now for the first time, it is being used for a TV series.
“We have always gone a step ahead, whether in the creation of a movie or a TV series. The idea is to keep going forward in terms of technology as well as the kind of concepts adopted. This music video is another step in the same direction,” says Viacom 18 programming head & Nickelodeon programming director Anu Sikka with pride.
The catchy title track of Gattu Battu instantly became popular and received a positive response from the audience as well as the network team.“So why not make a proper dance number for children on which they can tap their feet,” exclaims Sikka. An enthusiastic response from kids for the Motu Patlu King of Kings dance number further encouraged the team to try out mocap for video for a TV series.
“This technique allows flexibility and fluidity which is difficult to crack purely with animation,” she further says, explaining the objective behind using the motion capture technology.The series began airing from 1 May 2017 but the song has been released only now. “We wanted to give time for the show to build on children and for them to get used to it.”
Also, as the schools have started opening, Nickelodeon wanted to keep the momentum going by treating kids with something new that keeps them hooked.The two minute 20 second video was created in a facility in Hyderabad by Puppet Animation Studios and Green Gold Animation. Puppet Animation handled the mocap part while Green Gold did the animation.
The title track was sung by Dangal’s ‘Hanikarak Bapu’ child artist duo Sartaj and Sarvar. The music was composed by Simaab Sen with lyrics being penned by Gulzaar.
The song was choreographed by Himanshu, who has been associated with Nick for quite some time now. He has also choreographed the Motu Patlu feature film dance number earlier.The dance-music video which has already been aired on Nickelodeon will also be telecast on its sister channels and will soon come up on all its other platforms.
Sikka points out that there were challenges. “There are limited number of studios that can execute this technique.” Finding that one studio was hence the only challenge.Gattu Battu has been promising so far, but they have as of yet allotted limited slots to the show. “It is a new show. So we want to build it slowly and steadily,” Sikka states.
So will we get to see more of these technology-based videos in the future? Sikka replies, “Right now we are at a stage of experimenting and exploring. We have taken this initiative and lead in being the first one in the animation genre to experiment with this technique.”So as more avenues open for it, she assures that we will “definitely see more of such content in the near future.”