Vaibhav Studios is one of the giants when it comes to bringing out creative animated concepts and story lines! After creating the mini zoo zoo’s for this year’s IPL TVC series, the studio now gives an animated touch to Rakhi Festival with its latest Fevicol Commercial.
AnimationXpress.com’s Zeenia Boatwala touched base with Vaibhav Kumaresh – Founder of Vaibhav Studios to know more the efforts gone into creating this tvc.
It is a fun animated tvc treat for the auds! How did you nab this project?
With both hands!! J Jokes apart the creative team at O&M Mumbai was pretty clear they wanted to work with us and we feel honored for being the ‘chosen ones’!
Were you briefed about the concept?
Yes! Fevicol wishes to make festival greeting films. The two elephants (from the Fevicol logo) would be the main character’s was the brief. A couple of rough scripts for various festivals were also shared by O&M.
After hearing the brief, what was the vision and approach that you moved on with?
The scripts were pretty simple and straight forward. We just needed to ensure that it translated the same way into the final film – of course with much more fun! Other than that it’s a campaign so simplicity of the plot, storytelling and audio visual richness is all that I had in mind.
Could you put light on quick three factors that came into your mind for making this tvc look right?
It was Storytelling, Look and Characters!
The Rakhi film had a lot of action and I wasn’t sure if 10 seconds were enough for it. We had to see the film in a moving format to make sure it works so the first thing we tried out was the animatic. On the look front we also explored flat 2D designs alongside digital 3D ones. We finally preferred the 3D designs and went ahead with those. The characters evolved out of the explorations. Once one look was locked, others were designed in the same family.
Designs
Was this the only concept that you had in mind or you had other options?
For the Rakhi film, O&M had provided us the basic script and premise: Two elephants running away from a female elephant. That was fixed. We did discuss slightly different ideas as well but finally stuck to the original one.
I liked the addition of little chickens in the beginning of the tvc- your views?
We didn’t want it to look like a ghost town! So we thought of adding some elements that keep it alive without cluttering up the film. That’s how the chickens happened. Thankfully they also helped spice up the chase.
How was the sound designing like?
The music & sound design is by Roto Shah. We have collaborated on many projects and it’s always fun to work with Roto.
Roto Shah also shares his take on the music composition and sound designing for this tvc by saying:
Vaibhav had sent me the animatic and the final output image of the elephant as in how the film will look. He keeps updating me on every aspect from the beginning as it helps me a lot while composing. During my brain storming session (where I’m excited but tensed about how to make it interesting) I had only one thing in mind. As it is a campaign with a series of films and without voice over it needs to have a short and sweet signature tune just like the cute characters. I didn’t want to make it a typical cartoony tune or background score. It had to have a recall value which is most important for me while composing. It had to be Indian as it’s for Indian festivals and has to be fun. So i came up with this sweet tune which is cute like the elephants, has that naughtiness in it like the elephants, and its peppy n sweet. Seems like a tasty recipe.
Can we have a credit run down?
| Script | O&M Mumbai |
| Music & Sound design | Roto Shah |
| Animation production | Chandni Chudasama |
| Technical direction | Bhavesh Gondaliya |
| Animation | Ajit Aher, Dapun Rai Dewan |
| Modeling & Layout | Mahboob Raja, Bhavesh Gondaliya, Tapas Jana |
| Rigging | Chandni Chudasma, Abhijit Ghodke |
| Texturing | Avinash Gulhane |
| Lighting | Sagar Kulkarni |
| Production assistant | Baadal Chaurasia |
| Design & direction | Vaibhav Kumaresh |
| Producer | Vaibhav Studios, Mumbai |
Was your storyboard final in the first go or did you make any tweaks?
The Rakhi film was action packed and we had very few frames to devote to each shot. After the first animatic, we did try out another version of the same story where there was lesser action and more performance to see if it worked better.
What were the researches and inspirations for bringing out this tvc?
We looked at various designs of elephants by different artists online. We saw how different people had had fun with the structure. We absorbed certain features that we liked in them!
Why 3D for this TVC?
I wanted to try out a 2D animated look in the beginning. As the final logo that we had to arrive at was 2D, and also since the premise was so simple, I thought it was worth a shot. We made couple of artworks in 2D as well. However finally everyone preferred the 3D look so we went ahead with it. Personally I don’t think the medium is too critical for this campaign. The final product looks good and as long as we keep juicing up the strengths of our chosen medium, I am sure we’ll manage a good looking campaign!
The colors give out a festive feel, how did you finalize on these color blends?
We planned to use rich colors and painted textures on the 3D environments instead of a realistic material finish. When the realistic light fell on these virtual 3D spaces covered with color splats and brush strokes, it created a very good looking yet believable image. We did desaturate the backdrops a bit at the end to not make it look like a color riot!
Was there acting for animation?
Ajit Aher, Animation Director at Vaibhav Studios answers this by saying, This TVC was entirely action oriented with elephants running, climbing, hiding etc. for which acting out the entire film was not necessary. However we went through video references of elephants. Our main focus was to keep it playful.
And Vaibhav also adds here
We also added a bit of human feel for certain actions where they climb up a wall.