‘The Mailbox’ a 7 minute 8 seconds Animation short made by Nikhita Prabhudesai, an Animation Student from MIT Institute of Design, Pune won the Asifa Excellence Award in Best Student – 2D Animated Film at Asifa India 2013.
The storyline of ‘The Mailbox’ revolves around how a local postman gets accused of tampering the mails, due to which he decides to investigate on who is the real culprit behind it. In the process of investigation, the postman gets to know that Francis, a neighbor who tampered letters on daily basis, was very fond of collecting wax seals of different countries as that was the only way of keeping his father’s memories alive.
After knowing this fact, the postman respects the interest of the neighbour, keeps this secret to himself and makes sure Francis receives a letter with a new seal every day.
Click here to view the Short Film
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com about the concept of ‘The MailBox’, Nikhita, says, “Through this Animation Short, I wanted to highlight the importance of friendship, social alienation, loneliness and fear.”
The story has a location set up of Goa, keeping in mind the timeline of post independence phase of the 60’s when people had their families dispersed from Goa due to the freedom struggle, bringing out the depth of feeling ‘left out’.
Sharing about the research work, Nikhita explains, “To give out a perfect look and feel of Goa, I spent a month capturing photos of different houses of Margao, Fontainhas/Malla in old Panjim, and Lutolim. This inturn helped me in the form of a reference while finalizing architecture, greenery, lampposts, doors, pavements etc.”
Francis’ character reflects Nikhita’s hobby of collecting different items like shells, rocks, letters, leaves, photos, coins, feathers. The nature of Mrs. Geeta D’Souza and Mr. Mascarenhas in this short, was finalized after observing the behaviour pattern of a typical Goans specifically who have well settled lives in Goa.”The character sketches were colored digitally and experimented on visual development of the animated on paper using different mediums like watercolors, pencils and pens. The backgrounds that are seen in this short are completely hand drawn by pen on paper by digitally coloring it.”, Adds further.
Most of the scenes in the short have a lot of greens and reds as there is a lot of greenary which fills Goa with freshness. As the story progresses towards the rainy scenes, bright and saturated colour pallets were used, to bring out a feel of how everything on the streets gets washed by the rains in the monsoons.
“Greys, Blues and Purples were used to build up tensed/nervous shots. The mild instrumental beats from ‘The Tumbled Sea’ increases the depth of tensed, thought provoking and eerie moments.”,shares more
Nikhita used different Camera Angles to give detailed visual information to the audience. Closeups in this short gives the audience an opportunity to notice the expressions and thought processes of each and every character but on the other hand, long shots have been used to give a sense of loneliness and fear. Low angle up shots are used for dramatic effect to show tension and anxiety.
1.5 years duration has been taken to create the film.The production is entirely digital 2D hand-drawn animation done using Wacom tablet and TVPaint software used for animation whereas Post-Production was done using Adobe Premier and Adobe After Effects.
“I am very thankful to Alok N.R, Prosenjit Ganguly, and Rajeev Shinde Sir, Ram Singh Rohun Rege, Ishan Sadwelkar and Bharat Shrivastav and mTheresa D’Souza, Sir Sandesh Pawar, Rajeev Shinde and Indrajit Neogi, Akhil Khandeparkar, Ishan, Alok, Krithika Yegnaraman, Lakshmi Nair, Arvind Jeena, Dhruv Mehta, Poulomi Mehta and Prachi Joshi , who helped me with the Direction, storyboarding, technical aspects and voice over “, concludes Nikhita