Mumbai based film company Celluloid Dreams which is producing the live action cum CG film Friends Forever has announced its involvement in yet another CG project tentatively titled Life After Death.
Life After Death is an outsourced assignment for Celluloid Dreams and the company shall be providing the pre roduction (Story, Script, Storyboards, Dialogue, Voices, Background Score, Character Design) for the CG animated movie. The animation production for the same shall be carried out at Chennai Based Red Octane studios.
The entire development cycle of the feature is around 30 months. The pre production work has commenced since February and will be complete by end of July.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress, Celluloid Dreams executive producer Kanad Kashyap stated,”We are extremely delighted to work on this international project. One of the most significant things about Life After Death is that it is an animation film which is trageted at adults and deals with a very mature, spiritual subject”
Acclaimed Bollywood personality and writer Kamlesh Pandey whose latest work includes writing the cult hit Rang De Basanti will be helming the pre production including story, screenplay, dialogue for the project at Celluloid Dreams while South Indian director Singeetam Srinivasa Rao (of Pushpak, Appu Raja, Little John, Sinbad fame) will be directing the animation.
The veteran and innovative Singeetam is also welding the megaphone for another animated feature Mayajaal which is being produced by Hyderbad based Polygon Perplex.
Rang De Basanti and Life After Death writer Kamlesh Pandey shared, “Animation is still in infancy in India but it is picking up after the success of Hanuman. Now there are many people interested in making animation features, the Indian entertainment industry is taking the medium of animation seriously and not only as cartoons for kids. In the next 5 years, India can become a global hub for the creation of animation features”
“Life after death is not the name of the film, that’s just a tentative title based on the subject of the movie, I am wiriting it and hopefully by next month, I shall deliver the first draft. Currently the animators and artists are working on developing the characters and backgrounds, for which I have provided them sufficient story and overall descriptions” he added.
“Life After Death is based around a story of reincarnation. Reincarnation exists in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the theory means that we are not restricted to one birth, life is a cycle, we keep coming and going. The movie is about what happens after death with a love story interwoven in it” he further added.
On being asked as to what was different about writing for live action as compared to animation?, the prolific writer who has to his credit, hits like Khalnayak, Saudagar, Tezaab, Dil and Beta besides the latest rage Rang De Basanti replied that,”Writing for animation is a little different because it has to be more visual, you can’t depend on the acting ablities of your star, nor on subtle expressions which a live actor could convey. The performance is restricted by the medium itself. While writing for animation you don’t have the actor’s ability to depend on, like you would when you wrote for someone like the Big B or Aamir Khan. Instead a lot depends on the animator’s range of acting and performing for the character and Indian animators currently are fresh and new and dont have that experience where they could bring that depth and range of expression into an animated character with their skills”
“The strong point of course is the fact that animation has this enormous ability to portray and depict fantasy, adventure and action, without actually building physical sets. And that opens a million doors” he added.
Continuing on the topic of difference between writing for live action and animation, Pandey further elaborated,”Another thing about writing for animation is that the writing has to be extremely detailed. Because animators need to be told what exactly you have in mind. Format wise too, everything has to be explained frame by frame, including things like camera placement etc. In animation, you have to first record the voices and while you record you also shoot the recording so that the facial expression is on record and then you take to the animator for reference who do the animation based on that”
“The voices for Life After Death will be done next month. I am also in talks for a couple of other animation centric scripts with Celluloid Dreams which I want to make for an international audience” he concluded.