‘Puff’, a 3D Animation Short Film won the Best Character Animation Category, Best Stylization and Best 3D film Gold award at 24FPS International Animation Awards.This 5 mins 33 seconds Short Film, directed by Vijosh Nair and Harishankar Agnihotri, targets kids as they love watching an imaginary world.
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Interacting with AnimationXpress.com, Vijosh Nair and Harishankar Agnihotri (Directors) and the faculty of MAAC Borivali, reveal the basic concept of the storyline, props, colour textures, mood and various technical aspects of this Short Film.
The Storyline revolves around the character of a witch haunting around the village, which is under the spell of magical powers. Troubling innocent people with magic gave her happiness and satisfaction. But by the end of the shot, due to the innocent kind hearted kid’s loving gesture by fixing her magical broom with a sorry note, made her realize that troubling people would lead to hatred towards her and just leave her lonely all throughout her life.
Explaining the gist of this short film, Harishankar Agnihotri says, “The story is a classic example of good vs evil and how the power of love can melt even the toughest of hearts.”
“The different scenes in which a little girl is seen enjoying her candy sitting by the tree, the boy sitting by the pond holding balloons in his hand and enjoying the view and the weather and a couple spending a romantic moment on the bench of a garden were picked up from daily observations in and around the world.” Atharva Ghanekar, Pre-Production Team Member further adds.
Interesting Animated props and Colour textures reflected different emotions in this Short Film. The use of the broom easily conveyed the old, evil and rustic look of the witch. For the park scene, where the couple is sharing a romantic moment, the team used the shades of pink for the lady, as it reflects feminism, compassion and love. And on the other hand, Blue was used for the man as it reflects masculinity, loyalty and trust.
How did the melodious music string help in a smooth flow of this film? To this, Vijosh Nair says, “We wanted to convey a message related to human emotions in the form of actions. And as actions speak louder than words, Music helped us to convey our message more conveniently with a meaningful flow of the story.”
Using a wide range of camera angles for this short film added up to a detailed view to the dynamic actions taking place in each of these scenes. “Zoom in and Close up shots were specifically used to move the focus of the audience towards the background colors and the expressions of the witch as well.” Adds Kundan Patil, Production team member for Puff.
The ideation of “PUFF” began from April and was completed in six months. Rigging the characters was the greatest challenge faced by the team as this helps to highlight the smooth movements of each character.
Several Software like Photoshop, Premiere, Fusion, Mudbox, Vray and Maya were used for the making of this short film. Atharva Ghanekar and Vinita Talekar were responsible for the Pre Production and Anand Kumar, Punit Shirodkar, Nikhil Jangle, Jayesh Karanjkar, Kundan Patil, Ajinkya Shinde, Neha Chandrashekhar for the modeling, texturing and animation. Neha Raut & Rakesh Mishra for lighting & compositing. Overall the film was made under the guidance of the faculties of MAAC Borivali – Vijosh Nair & Harishankar Agnihotri. Contributions were made by industry veteran Rajkishor Varu, Sougata Mitra for the art department and Sameer Shanishchar, who is an integral part of the 24FPS senior mentor and Vijay Singh Shekhawat who composed the soundtrack for the Short.