Remember ‘Jungle Jungle baat chali hai’ the title song from Jungle Book (dubbed Hindi version) that reverbrated across Indian homes on Sunday mornings?
Or more recently Akdam bakdam and ‘Mahabali Mahurudra’ from India’s first Indigenously created animated superhit, Sahara Percept’s Hanuman?
Indian music, songs and animation work well together!
Kerala based Toonz Animation India which since inception has maintained a balance between original content creation and International assignments recently inked an MOU with Mumbai based production house Impact Vision to produce for the first time the grand Indian epic ‘Mahabharat’ as an attractive combination of Animation, Lyrics and Music in Hindi.
The planned series Geet Mahabharat will feature the entire epic narrated in song sequences suitably strung together to create standard half hour episodes.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress Toonz Animation India CEO P Jayakumar stated,”This is a very interesting project for the studio, creating an animated show that completely hinges around music is a challenge”
Impact Vision CEO Satish Mutatkar who is originator of the concept and writer of Geet Mahabharat, will also be the Creative Director for the project. The prolific and versatile film maker has also written the lyrics for the animated superhit Hanuman.
Mutatkar stated,”Mahabharat is simply the greatest story ever told. With modern Animation and Music we now have the right tools to take it to any audience. And Hanuman has already demonstrated that there is a huge family audience for Animated mythological subjects presented in a contemporary and attractive manner”
Sharing some more insights about the project with Animation ‘xpress, Mutatkar stated “It is my personal observation that popular Indian music gels very well with animation. With the songs playing in the background, the animators saved from the hassle of matching phemones will have a lot of creative freedom to depict the story”
“The plan is to stick to the main essence of the epic and not to veer into the sub stories of the characters. Creating entertaining content is our objective. We have already spoken to most of the major general entertainment broadcasters and the response has been very encouraging”