“Wondering whom to vote for in coming election? Watch this before you decide” is the tagline of Mumbai based Climb Media’ latest 2 minute 2D animated film ‘Kaun Banega Pradhanmantri’ created for ABP N
ews Channel that presents the Election and Voting Scenario in India. Watch the Film by Clicking Here
“We had to be true to the content and the message we are trying to 
put across and at the same time we had to be careful not to hurt any sentiments during the process.” Shares Natasha Selim, Director of this short with AnimationXpress.com and we continue this conversation with her to hear the making of ‘‘Kaun Banega Pradhanmantri”?
Hi Natasha, it is a pleasure to converse with you, how did this project happen and what was the brief given to Climb Media?
The team from ABP had seen our past work, they found our official and they got in touch with us.
ABP wants its viewers to think twice before casting their votes. They wanted the public to understand that politicians will do anything to get votes. Our first thought was to retain the gist of the campaign that ABP had conceptualized to inform and educate the public about the candidates and their agendas.
Most of us discuss politics anywhere with anybody. The public ends up taking a decision without knowing enough about the candidate. Important decisions are taken very lightly, generally women in a household follow the men’s lead. There is a herd mentality which we follow blindly in return for material goods. We fail to see the bigger picture. This promo is intended to make them think; to search for more information before taking such a big decision as to who should run the country.
Take us through script to screen Journey?
First between ABP and us we had several rounds of meetings ideating on content. Then we came on a script which underwent a few rounds of changes, parallel to that we were working on the song. Once we had clarity on the script we made several concept art drawings to give the client a range of styles of execution to choose from. Once that was done, we worked out a detailed storyboard. From that stage we went into animation and final mixing of the song. ABP team and we together worked on the song. We tried to make it fun, mainstream and at the same hold high recall value. In total the entire process took a little over 3 months.
Can we have a credit run down?
Sure!
The OAP team from ABP News TV Channel: Deepesh P, Yogesh Dubey and Dhruti Mitra
Produced by: Climb Media
Director: Natasha Selim
Music Composer: Sebastian Andrade
Animation Team: Prashant Shikare, Yogesh Kawale, Raviraj Kumbhar
Compositor: Arvind Shirke
How much time did it take for script finalization and were there any other story lines in mind?
It took about 2 months. There were lots of plots and sub-plots but along the way they had to be dropped or modified in order to be true to the synergy of the film as a whole.
Is the story line, backgrounds or characters inspired from any real life experiences or references?
The idea is to let our viewers draw their own conclusions – so the situations may be inspired from real life characters and scenarios but they are generic to encourage formation of individual opinions.
Please highlight the look and feel why did you choose this blend?
We liked this contemporary light feel of this style. Since the content of our film is so messy and turbulent we needed a style that was clutter free and fresh so that we could focus on the story and not get distracted by the visuals.
Tell us about the choice of 2D animation, software used and was there extensive acting for animation too?
2D is a light and easy format to work with, especially when one wants the emphasis to be on the storytelling. We used Flash animation and composited on Adobe after Effects .In this film the acting references are right in front of us in the real world, but of course little nuances and quirks were added by me.
What was the challenge?
The biggest challenge was how to do an interesting execution whilst managing a very tight budget. A news channel budget is not conducive to high end animation films – but because we were so convinced of the content we overcame the challenge.