All Entries in the "Featured" Category
Bitten by the Festival Bug
The festival season is upon us and I don’t mean the religious festivals like Ganesh Utsav, Navratri, Ramzan and Diwali. I am talking about Animation festivals.
The season kicks of with the much-awaited and resilient ANIFEST INDIA ‘09, which battled the killer flying pigs (you know what I mean!!) to emerge a winner. Now slated for 18th, 19th and 20th of September, ANIFEST INDIA will retain its flavour and all its fantastic sessions except for those by Nate Wragg and Christian Krupa who had to return to the USA. Instead we have a super VFX bonanza from Sony Imageworks - Behind the Scenes of ‘The Watchmen’ and ‘G-Force 3D’. TASI has done a superb job of getting an assortment of topics together all at one venue - Anifest India ‘09 is being held at the Convocation Hall, IIT Powai, Mumbai. Registrations were closed in early August itself as the number crossed 1500 but spot registrations @Rs.400/- all inclusive might just be available if you reach early on the days of the event.
For all the details including sessions, speakers, timing and the TASI Viewer’s Choice Awards, visit www.tasionline.org
Next up is the week-long International Animation Day celebration by ASIFA India sometime in October-November. Every year, 27th October is commemorated as International Animation Day across the globe. ASIFA India has been celebrating the occasion with events held across various cities in India - typically beginning with an all-day event in Mumbai at NCPA where the Awards of Excellence are given out. While I’m still awaiting details about this year’s festival, the Call for Entries for the 8th Annual ASIFA India Awards of Excellence are open. For details, check out this link. Hurry, the last date is 13th September 2009.
Then from Oct 29th to 31st we have the second edition of Chitrakatha - An international student animation film festival organised by the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. What’s even cooler about the festival (besides the fact that you get to interact with probably the best talent in the country) is that it is being held against the beautiful backdrop of the NID campus. If you missed it the last time, make sure you don’t miss it now! They also have announced a call for entries - one for a student category and the other for teachers. Check it out here.
Make the most of it and don’t miss any of these celebrations of the Art of Animation!
Anifest Ahoy!! Get set for Anifest India ‘09
Come August, Anifest India will be back with more power-packed sessions, more fun and more learning than ever before. So mark your calendars and get all your friends and acquaintances who love animation to come down to Mumbai for the 2009 edition of ANIFEST INDIA.
Remember the dates: 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th August at the Convocation Hall, IIT Powai, Mumbai
The TASI committee has worked extra, extra hard and got some super-speakers all ready to share their knowledge with the Indian animation enthusiasts. Here is the basic information (click on the posters to enlarge) and if you want to know more, just go right ahead to the TASI website - www.tasionline.org
Three Cheers for ‘Yama and Moo’
After blog upon blog of cribbing about the absolute crap coming out of Indian animation studios, here is something that will bring a smile to your lips and make your chest swell with pride. A short CG animated film conceived, produced and executed by a young team of Indian animators. A brilliant piece of art, it is the result of a collaboration between Void Films and Frameboxx Incubation Center. Don’t take my word for it. See it for yourself and send your feedback. Enjoy!!
Learning from Waltz With Bashir
Waltz with Bashir
Well, from Ari Folman, the creator of this compelling animated documentary, actually. An interview with Marshall Fine of the Huffington Post, gives us a glimpse into the mind of writer/director Ari Folman who made this film against all odds and gained worldwide success. He has almost philosophical views on war, forgiveness and politics but those have no place here on an animation blog. What I really want to share here are 5 invaluable lessons gleaned from the interview with this unconventional film-maker. I hope our aspiring animators and film-makers who want to make their own films will take these lessons to heart.
Lesson No. 1: It is all in the story-telling
(from the interview) …A very personal look at the Israel-Lebanon war of 1982, Waltz with Bashir follows Folman as he tracks down old friends and fellow veterans of the Israeli Army and asks them to share their memories of the conflict. Whenever he tries to remember it, he draws a blank - and so he goes to his friends to help refresh his memory. The result is an exercise in recall that melts from memory to dream to hallucination - ending in a shocking moment of reality when the film suddenly moves from animation to archival footage of the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Muslims by Lebanese Christian forces, in retaliation for the assassination of president-elect Bashir Gemayel…With a controversial but factual story about war combined with real, archival footage, who would have thought the film would catch the fancy of people across the world? A dark, disturbing subject like war has been tackled innumerable times before so what sets apart this film? The answer lies in the telling of the story. Can you create interest in the minds of the audience? Can you get them involved in the lives of your characters? Can you hook them, grip them, enchant them, make them suspend disbelief and lose themselves in your story? THAT is the power of story-telling, no matter what the subject is.
Lesson No. 2: Believe. In yourself. In your story. In the medium.
(from the interview) …But, as Folman says, a nonfiction retelling that relied on archival footage would have been lumped in with all the other talking-head political documentaries that come and go - many of them never being released, most going unseen in the U.S. - every year. Animation made it stand out - and helped Folman find a way to exploit the visual aspects of what is essentially an oral history. “Animation was the only way to do it,” he says. “I imagined it as an animated film. I always knew it would be. I had no other choice. It’s a story about the subconscious, about fear and death, war horrors, drugs - the only way to include all of that was animation.” Inevitably, he faced questions: Is it true? Is it real? Which raised other questions: Did animation undermine its connection to reality - or enhance it? “The hardest part was convincing people that it could be done,” Folman say…A lot of people questioned Folman’s decision to make a film on this subject. They felt his choice of medium was inappropriate as well. He did not have a background in animation either. But he believed. In the story he had to narrate, in the medium of ‘animated-documentary’ and most of all, in himself. The strength of his conviction ensured that the film got made.
Lesson No. 3: Never give up. Keep trying.
(from the interview) …Even then, the film had to be made piecemeal. Folman started with three minutes, then started pitching. It took him four years to get the money to finish the movie. “I pitched it three and a half years ago in Toronto,” he says. “I had a three-minute scene that I showed to 40 people - and 38 of them said, ‘Why animated?’ They didn’t want it. “You have to convince a lot of people. I went to a lot of parties. It was a complicated four years. I never stopped. I did three minutes, then went to Toronto and raised money. Then I did 20 minutes, then I stopped and raised more money. Then I did 40 minutes. If you stop, you get stuck and lose your team and it gets more complicated.”…The task was daunting. The film was almost experimental and most people had rejected his pitch. Yet he went on undeterred. He not only worked on the film himself, he also went around trying to raise funds. He did everything possible to ensure the film was completed. He had a vision and a task. He went all out to make it a reality, not giving up even once.
Lesson No. 4: Innovate
(from the interview) …A TV writer (including for the Israeli version of In Therapy) and director, Folman had never worked with animation before. And with minimal funding for his idea, he had to come up with his own approach. “We invented the animation style,” he says. “Basically it is cut-out animation. We did it ourselves because of the very low budget we had.”…Sure, there were problems. Unforeseen ones as well as expected ones. With a budget that was limited, Ari and his team reiterated the proverb - Necessity is the mother of invention. When you have a goal, you cannot let anything stop you from achieving it. Try with whatever is within your means but also push the limit whenever you can. Experiment, innovate, turn your shortcomings into advantages, push the envelope.
Lesson No. 5: Do it for YOURSELF
(from the interview) …As he worked on it, Folman felt he was making something special - but what filmmaker doesn’t? Even then, though he was excited when the film was accepted at Cannes, he had no sense of the way it would be received. “We were clueless about its impact until we came to Cannes,” he says. “We knew nothing. We were working in a small lab on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and we were having fun. I knew when it was done it would be a great movie. All along, I was very confident. I had solved a lot of the problems artistically and financially. But I was surprised at the fight for the film after the screening. Really, we didn’t know what we were doing. I believe you never do as filmmakers.”…Folman did not make this film to prove a point. He did not make it to win accolades for the animation. He had a story that he wanted to narrate which he wanted to take to people across the world. He was not thinking of audiences or jury when he was making the film. He made it the way it best enhanced the story. He was focussed on the task at hand and gave it his best. That is something most of us do not do. We lose track thinking of the grand prize awaiting us at the finishing line. Do not make the film because it is your class lesson, or project, or perhaps your job. Do not do it for the ‘money’ or ‘awards’. Do it for your own sake - because you have a story that deserves to be told in the best possible manner.
I will leave you with the trailer of Waltz with Bashir and a parting thought. There is so much to learn from the experiences of others. Our animation/filmmaking students sometimes suffer because they do not have good teachers at their schools and institutes, but what stops them from learning outside the classroom?
A Big Thank You
Since the time I launched the AAA blog and website just over a year ago, I have tried to keep my readers updated as often as possible with information, announcements and news but lately it has been tough. Being the lone force behind AAA, I have juggled client obligations, work commitments and my updates on the AAA website and blog. When you are a writer, designer, editor, animator, accountant, marketing manager, PR person, event organiser and home-maker all rolled into one, sometimes you slip-up. I offer my loyal readers, friends and well-wishers my sincere apology for the times when I have delayed putting up posts or responding to comments, feedback and emails. Those of you who were unaware before that AAA is a one-woman team, now you do. So I hope you understand and forgive 
Good bye 2008!
What a year it was, for Indian animation and for me personally as well. A roller-coaster year one may call it. Ups and downs, highs and lows. Memorable moments and some, unfortunately, ‘trying-hard-to-forget’ ones. A year that saw the launch of many new animation training institutes and studios, the formation of strategic partnerships, major acquisitions and tie-ups, a couple of announcements about new animated features/series and also the scrapping of highly-publicised, prestigious ones. A year whose first half saw more jobs than people but ended with the equation reversed - layoffs and yet more layoffs!
AAA Blog Makeover
A big hello to all my readers and hope everyone had a great Diwali After the website, now it’s the turn of the blog to go in for an image and content ‘makeover’. Over this weekend, I am going to make a few changes to the structure of the blog and also its appearance as over the past one year, a lot of things have changed and the blog has evolved as well. The aim is to make the blog posts more frequent, relevant and exciting. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the loyal readers who have patiently waited for me to update the blogs as and when I have found the time and have taken the effort to comment and discuss the posts. The new blog will allow a lot more interaction and perhaps together we, that is AAA and its readers, can make some impact on the Indian Animation Industry. Cheers to that!
Do remember to check out the new ‘avatar’ of the AAA blog on Monday - 3rd November, 2008. Have a great weekend!
Yours animatedly,
Akshata
Recession in the industry?!! Don’t press the panic button just as yet.
Now that the noise has died down and the dust has settled, the casualty is slowly beginning to show. For two years everyone was shouting from the rooftops about the animation boom in India. Institutes proclaimed India needs animators and ill-informed parents poured out their hard-earned money into many an unworthy school. Many people left their well-paying jobs and successful businesses to enter the animation industry. All of a sudden everyone wanted to be in animation.
The hype was not all bad. Many more people began sitting up and taking notice of this thing called ‘Animation’ than before. Students and parents alike opened their eyes to this new career prospect. Existing animators began celebrating their new-found respect in the eyes of their detractors who had so far looked down upon their choice of vocation. All-in-all the Indian animation industry saw a spurt in interest, enthusiasm, educational avenues and job opportunities. Within a year, more than 70 animated feature films were announced. Actual work began on a far lesser number of movies.
But the latest news coming out of studios is not good. Many production houses and studios have folded up. Others have laid off a majority of their employees. People have woken up to the fact that making an animated film is no cake walk. There may be a lot of enthusiasm and ideas but the lack of funds, acute shortage of ‘talented’ artists and short-sightedness of studios have become major obstacles.
