Mumbai based Studio Eeksaurus, that is founded and spearheaded by Suresh Eriyat, who recently bagged FICCI BAF Award for Rasna Commercial in the Animated Ad Film Intl. Category, has animated a 1 minute 28 second ad titled ‘India is Polio Free’ as a part of Polio Ad Campaign of Rotary International, and has two more films in pipeline fo
r this campaign.
Celebrating life in unison with freedom, 2014 is the year when India finally gets to exalt in its victory over the long battle of polio. To mark this achievement, Rotary International – an organization working for humanitarian services, through the design and creative efforts of Eeksaurus, launched this special campaign which will literally pull at the strings of your heart.
Voiced by Amitabh Bachchan, this ad is scripted by JWT, and tells the story of a young child determined to break free from the bonds that hold him down, is a simple yet effective rendition of how the impossible can be made possible when people join hands in working towards a cause.
The sweet music in the background is sung by children from the slums of Govandi, further spelling out true empowerment from its very ethos
- Suresh Eriyat
In a press note, Suresh Eriyat, Founder & Director at Eeksaurus shares his thoughts, “The coreethos of this campaign was to reach out to the masses hence no caste, gender or creed was highlighted. Indian tradition leads us to believe and rely on our fate or ‘haath ke lakeer’, whereas two drops of polio can change your entire life.
Brainstorming with the team of JWT, we wanted to bring out the message that there is hope and lives can be beautiful when people work together. What greater way to convey this than through the use of strong imagery and music? We went a step further to use traditional instruments such as the Birimba, a single string instrument from Brazil, to emphasize on the sensitivity of the situation.”
Highlighting the brief and the ideation on the campaign, Senthil Kumar – National Creative Director from JWT, India says in a press release, “When Rotary International briefed us on this noble project, we knew that we had to create something that stood up to this giant step of a Polio Free India. Without words we wanted to spread the message that through combined efforts, it is possible to overcome even the most difficult of problems. When my team came up with the idea of join hands with Rotary, we knew immediately that there was only one maestro i.e. Suresh Eriyat who could bring this idea to life and we didn’t even look anywhere else.”
So was it a challenge for Eeksaurus to animate the concept of Polio?
“Depicting Polio in a metaphorical way and still get the message through was a challenge!” shares, Suresh Eriyat with AnimationXpress.com and we continue this conversation with him to know about the approaches and technologies followed by Eeksaurus to bring out the commercial.
Thank you for conversing with AnimationXpress.com, Suresh, how did this project happen?
Senthil Kumar, Nation Creative Director of JWT, gave us a call few months ago to discuss this noble Rotary Club project, a project to announce that India has won its battle against Polio. It was very clear from the onset they expected us to create a visual that had never been seen or done, before something different. They wanted to bring to life the concept that “the lines of faith on our hands can be changed when 2 hands come together”, to develop and bring to life a unique concept such as this was impossible for us to pass, the agency only wanted to work with us & there was no back and forth – they asked, we said yes!!!
What was the brief given to you?
The basic idea here being – “Logic says you can’t change fate as Nit’s sealed in the fate lines on your palm even before you are born. But the Magic of two hands coming together can change fate and miracles happen. This was how JWT came up with the idea of bringing these fate lines to life to change the fate of newborns. To add a few drops and erase the polio epidemic from India.”
Please take us down through the approaches that you decided to follow after hearing the brief?
We decided to follow a pipeline which includes combination of 2d traditional line drawing approach of animation and 3d asset creation and animation, as well. We decided to follow the traditional 2D animation route before actually mapping the lines onto the 3d photo-realistic hand model that we have created, so as to achieve the objective of the film in terms of look and feel. This is the only way we could make the character & elements actually look like the lines in our palms. Also for the music we decided to call aspiring children singers from the slums of Govandi, further spelling out true empowerment from its very ethos.
We needed to derive a completely different approach of the animation pipeline so as to keep intact both the message of the film and look and feel. Thus, we have to take a 2D animation traditional approach of actually drawing each and every line on paper and then mapping it onto 3D hand.
Any more challenges faced?
Apart from Depicting Polio in a metaphorical way and still get the message through, other challenges were Showing convincing action and emotion while making sure the elements actually did look like the lines in your palm and Designing a character that would lend itself to the look of being a line of the hand. It had to be minimal but still deftly convey emotion and be expressive.