As little champs Pavni, Samir, Raj and Ketaki swayed and sang onstage to the pulsating rhythm of Haathi Ka Bal hain, akal hain, shakal hain, at the music launch of Shemaroo�s animated debut Bal Ganesh, one got the heartening confirmation that the Indian animation business has evolved forever.
From being just in production services for years, the advent of original content creation has heralded Indian Animation into the consumer domain.
An evening packed with fun, frolic dances and singing and of course the charming Bal Ganesh, the music launch of the animated caper was full of cheer and indicates positively for the animated feature’s success.
The event was buzzing as the entire Shemaroo team including lady of the evening Smita Maroo producer of Bal Ganesh played perfect hosts to the glittering ensemble of singers young and experienced, famous and new including singers Sudhesh Bhonsle, his son Siddhant Bhonsle (making his debut) BIG FM RJ Lavanya along with Saregama participants Amaanat, Aneek, Junaid, Mauli, Sumedha and Zee Little champs Sameer and Pavni along with Raj Pandit and Ketaki.
Also ruling the roost were music director Shamir Tandon, lyricist Sameer, Director of the movie Pankaj Sharma amongst others.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, Shemaroo Director Smita Maroo revealed some of her marketing plans for the movie, “Music playes an important role in the promotion of the movie and at the moment, we are looking at promoting the music through various means including media synergies with Sa Re Ga Ma on Zee and several other innovations.”
“We are looking at a 360* marketing approach including merchandising, on ground events, online where we have launched the Bal Ganesh website for the promotion. At the same time, we have rolled out with several contests which are running on few leading online portals”
The clips that played from the movie were extremely cute and audience responded well.
Director of the movie Pankaj Sharma shared, “Children are going to love Bal Ganesh, I have approached the subject from their perspective and there is fun and frolic even while we have maintained the sanctity of the subject”
“Working on Animation is always interesting. We have quite a range of elements including cloth, hair, as well as other FX which had to be rendered in seperate passes and then composited together. It is a very collaborative process and a lot of fun to watch the whole thing come alive, but at the same time you need to have a lot of patience. Bal Ganesh being a theatrical feature meant we were working on a 2K resolution and that meant a lot of attention had to be given to detail” he added.
Not only the director and producers of the movie, but all the talent working on the film is equally enthused.
Music director Shamir Tandon shared, “In Bal Ganesh we have made different amalgamation of various genre of music. It was simply because a movie on lord Ganesh and that too in an animated version, we had to create something with which every youth and kid can relate to.”
“What better way than animation to tell kids stories about our culture and mythology. It is fun, involving and interesting. Singing for a movie was a completely new experience for me because I am a RJ but singing has always been my hobby, to which I practice even in my shows on radio.” shared BIG FM RJ Lavanya.
Timed with the forthcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival, the music of Bal Ganesh sure looks set to be a chart buster and will serve as an ideal build up as the movie gets ready for an October 2007 release.